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John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

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Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#31

Post by phil »

chc wrote: post #8
josephcooney wrote: post #4

I don't want to under-estimate the importance of movable type...but what has Gruber developed? Looking at the list at http://daringfireball.net/projects/ doesn't exactly fill me with shock and awe. I'd imagine with his huge following in the apple community he could put almost anything on the app store and it would sell. Can someone enlighten me? I guess my meta-point is, why am I reading software development career a…

Gruber is a writer who covers Apple stuff first, and a developer only when he has an itch to scratch. Just the same, though, Markdown is a pretty big deal. It's the de facto standard for content markup. I wouldn't call John Gruber a nobody.

Notably, it's a piece of software in which well-developed minimalism gets you better results than anything else.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#32

Post by comedian »

cheald wrote: post #22
jerguismi wrote: post #9

It would be interesting to know, why being an Apple developer is favourable to being any other type of a developer? For example, android market share is already larger than Apple devices, and people still spend lots of time in front of traditional web browsers. You can still make fortunes and/or have an interesting career with other platforms and technologies too.

Gruber's right because the mobile market is expanding. However, his loyalty to Apple keeps him from saying what he really should have said: Get into mobile (Apple AND Android), hard and fast. About 77 million of the "big two" (60 million Android, 17 million iPhone) smartphones shipped in Q3 2011. Apple has a huge install base, but it's not Apple's game anymore - Android has more than 3x Apple's marketshare, and is on…

It seems to me that Android is the next Nokia. Large market share but like Nokia their marketshare is almost worthless since Android users dont spend as much money as iOS users. At least that's what everybody's saying.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#33

Post by strait »

andrewfelix wrote: post #2

I usually find Gruber's tone to be arrogant and unnecessarily facetious. But I think his analogy is great.. "This is like being a Rock and roll musician in the late sixties. This is like being a film maker in the seventies..."

It's a long way to the top if you wanna Rock 'n' Roll. Won't get fooled again.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#34

Post by JeremyBanks »

phil wrote: post #31
chc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gruber is a writer who covers Apple stuff first, and a developer only when he has an itch to scratch. Just the same, though, Markdown is a pretty big deal. It's the de facto standard for content markup. I wouldn't call John Gruber a nobody.

Notably, it's a piece of software in which well-developed minimalism gets you better results than anything else.

The idea is good, but his execution and follow-through leaves something to be desired: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/12/responsible-open-so...

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#35

Post by danilocampos »

postfuturist wrote: post #21

Someone who calls themselves an Apple developer and who doesn't work for Apple needs to consider expanding their horizons. Mobile developer? That's a little better. Or just, developer. It's a great time to be a developer.

You've missed, entirely, the point.

What Gruber is saying is that anyone who is developing for Apple's platforms is about to enjoy an enormous surge of opportunity. As these platforms see even further adoption, their capability will only increase. So if you're in Apple's playground, you're watching it turn into Disneyworld in a way that will never come again once these devices are baked into people's assumptions about how the world works.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#36

Post by guywithabike »

gbog wrote: post #27
tikhonj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a word: Gruber. His bias towards Apple is unmatched.

He is completely out of his mind. George Lucas, a Saint? Along with Saint Thomas, Saint John, etc.? Words have no meaning anymore... Even Confucius would be pissed of. (When asked what he would do first if given a prime minister position, he say he would rectify the words.)

Woah there, Nelly. Gruber said, "When George Lucas was still sane." Don't worry. Your words still have their meaning. All is well.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#37

Post by ricardobeat »

mcantelon wrote: post #28
ricardobeat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faster growing, copycat infested, low paying market? Not that you shouldn't develop for it (hell, >1 million activations/day), but the climate over there is very different.

Much bigger in the developing world which is where the economic center of gravity is shifting to. So better long-term prospects unless trends reverse. But, yes, copycats are likely a bigger problem in Androidland.

It's bigger in all "first-world" countries too.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#38

Post by mikeash »

josephcooney wrote: post #4

I don't want to under-estimate the importance of movable type...but what has Gruber developed? Looking at the list at http://daringfireball.net/projects/ doesn't exactly fill me with shock and awe. I'd imagine with his huge following in the apple community he could put almost anything on the app store and it would sell. Can someone enlighten me? I guess my meta-point is, why am I reading software development career a…

I had the same thought about his constant use of the word "we". Much of what he said may be true, but it hardly seems like any of it applies to him.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#39

Post by GHFigs »

cheald wrote: post #22
jerguismi wrote: post #9

It would be interesting to know, why being an Apple developer is favourable to being any other type of a developer? For example, android market share is already larger than Apple devices, and people still spend lots of time in front of traditional web browsers. You can still make fortunes and/or have an interesting career with other platforms and technologies too.

Gruber's right because the mobile market is expanding. However, his loyalty to Apple keeps him from saying what he really should have said: Get into mobile (Apple AND Android), hard and fast. About 77 million of the "big two" (60 million Android, 17 million iPhone) smartphones shipped in Q3 2011. Apple has a huge install base, but it's not Apple's game anymore - Android has more than 3x Apple's marketshare, and is on…

It's disingenuous to focus on Apple at a Mac/iOS-centric symposium?

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#40

Post by chc »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #34
phil wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably, it's a piece of software in which well-developed minimalism gets you better results than anything else.

The idea is good, but his execution and follow-through leaves something to be desired: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/12/responsible-open-so...

Eh, again, scratching an itch. He could have done more, but that wasn't his main goal. He doesn't make money off Markdown or anything, so his only real concern with it is how it serves his needs. My point was just that developing software, even popular software, isn't entirely foreign to him.
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