Trials Of An App Developer

My friends think my mind is stuffed into a 4x4 box compiled purely of smoothies and Japanese Sodas. While only partly true, if a room contained such ingredients it would be a heavenly room, what most people wouldn't guess about me from a first look is that I have an ever growing curiosity for computers.

My dad is a software guy, he's worked at Microsoft (7 years!), Visio, Watchguard, Windemere Real Estate (CTO), and now he's the Chief Technology Officer of a publishing company called RPI. When I first became interested in programming, my father scooped up the words dripping out of my mouth.“What's the first language I should learn?”, I asked rather confidently, excited to start making games (almost all kids want to program for this reason). We talked about many different languages that would suit my craving for adventure.

“Hm. Try C++,” he suggested, “You can get a book from the library. Google it.”

And so there I was, anxious to get busy. I asked my mother if she could pick up a C++ learning guide from the library the next time she went by while I was at school, she kindly agreed. Once I finished my middle school homework, I grabbed the book, plopped it down in front of our laundry room computer keyboard, and cracked it open. The first thing I noticed about the book is that it was black and white, small font, and the pictures were somewhat hard to see at times. The wording was complicated, and I ended up skipping most of the reasoning and diving straight into typing the code.

C++ is a compiled computer programming language, basically meaning that it needs a compiler or 'packager' to make all the code do stuff. One of the first things that the book tells you to do is to get an I.D.E. or Integrated Development Environment that will compile/debug/run all your sweet code for you. So that's the first thing I did. Once Eclipse (my IDE) was installed, I went on to skimming the text and copying the code into Eclipse. I fiddled around with the code and ran it.

“Hello World!”