Seeking to Understand

I just found out about a neat Javascript-based programming system for the iPhone called Jiggy. It’s probably a coincidence, but a few years ago I started a project named JiggleScript which happened to also be a Javascript-based development system that I had grand plans for extending with modules and such. (But since I can never seem to find anyone to help me with my projects, it of course died when I got bored of it one day.) The Jiggy team has a pretty extensive thank you page and JiggleScript isn’t mentioned, so it’s probably just a weird, cosmic case of… something.

Still, though… the universe is bizarre, isn’t it? I wish the Jiggy folks the best of luck - it looks really cool and targeting the iPhone with something like this is pure genius of the forehead-smacking variety. The iPhone platform is exactly the sort of thing I desperately wished for back when I was playing with JiggleScript (I even had ideas for a browser-based IDE like they are doing!) and when I got an iPhone and started developing for it, I never once thought of that old idea - instead I took on a much more exhausting task that, while I know has been helpful to many new developers and entertaining for others, is likely to have nowhere near the staying power or ultimate impact that Jiggy will probably have.

I finished iApp-a-Day and I’m still alive! Woo! I’m very much happy with myself that I was able to pull this off. My wife also finished her Nanowrimo novel this month, and I’m very proud of her for doing so. We’re both exited we’ve managed to complete such big projects in the same timeframe.

The irony is that after so much coding and looking forward to being done - I’m sitting here feeling a bit lost and without focus. Some of my neural patterns had become so used to the stress of needing to produce an app every day, that those brain cells are desperately looking for something else to stress about so they can feel useful again.

Which apps were your favorites, and why? Are there any devs using the code as inspiration or reference or as an example of how NOT to do something? Has the project inspired anyone out there to learn how to become a programmer themselves? Oh.. and what do you think I should do now with all this free time I suddenly have?

Here it is… the last app. It’s a drum - but you have to wave the phone/iPod around like a drum stick in order to make the sound. Your thumb controls the tone.

It’s been fun! I wanted to go out with a bit more of a bang - but I just didn’t have the time. I toyed with 3 different ideas yesterday trying to find something good, but ended up settling on the drum because it was actually something I could finish in time. I wanted to do a chat application, but that’s not a trivial thing and requires a bunch of server-side support in addition to the program that runs on the iPhone. Maybe some other day…

Thanks for sticking around and playing with everything! I hope you had some fun - and if you’re a dev, maybe my source code will come in handy for you. (I’ll get it updated later today with the final apps.)

I’ve just updated Piano with a full octave now! The keys are smaller, which might slightly affect playability, but the whole thing feels more complete now. So go play some songs, upload a vid to YouTube or something, and post the link! (I can’t play anything - so I’m relying on you all to show me what can be done with it!)