Thus far in iOS Developer Nanodegree program...

The journey to becoming a certified iOS Developer has begun! To set the stage, I will provide a little background information about myself, and my prior knowledge of programming, and let you know what I've learned to date. Currently, I work for a Fortune 500 company in the Marketing and Advertising division that stresses the importance of WorkForce 2020. This initiative is company wide and designed to encourage all of us to challenge ourselves and continue to learn new skills, especially technical skills. Now, my current day to day involves absolutely ZERO programming, and does not require any and never will, however, I wanted to challenge myself to learn a new skill that I know will be relevant for the immediate and long term future, and also has some obvious relationships with Marketing. Heck, every company already has an app, and will need one for as long as we can currently predict. Additionally, I see iOS developing as something that I think I would enjoy doing on my spare time as well. Before I decided to sign up for the iOS Nanodegree, I knew I had absolutely ZERO working knowledge of any programming language. So, per the direction of Udacity, I decided to take the Intro to Computer Science online course to get my first crack at the concepts of programming. What I learned about the basics of Python programming has definitely helped me so far in this course. Onto iOS... as I got started about a week ago, I really didn't know what to expect. I knew this was going to be a challenge, and a part of me still thinks there is a real chance that this becomes more challenging that what my current skill set allows, however, I'm giving it my best shot. So far, using the interface of Xcode, seems pretty straightforward. While I have an endless amount to learn, what the course has taught us so far makes sense (for the most part!). I've learned how to; Create an app, add buttons and pictures to an app, add a new screen to an app, add sound to an app and even manipulate the speed of that sound! The amazing part is as 'simple' as this app is in the grand scheme of the App Store, there is a cool sense of accomplishment for someone who has never done this before, and it gives me the urge to keep going and learn more! Also - the use of the Udacity forums has been HUGE. When I was working on adding transitions to my app (moving from one screen to another) for some reason my code was no longer working, and had an issue early in the code where it was working perfectly before. Not knowing how to fix this on my own, I used the forums for help, and found out I had "accidentally" added some breaks to my code. Once those breaks were deleted, all was well and good and I was back on track! I am excited to see what is in store next, and hopefully remain confident I can complete the entire course! Cheers to the next great app! -Brady