When it comes to mobile app development, the Internet is filled with blogs on the different kinds of apps, the methods to ensure their success in the app store, ways to ensure they receive high user ratings and the list goes on. Have you ever wondered though, how it feels like to be on the development end of an app and not the user end? How exactly do developers create a beautiful, highly functional and engaging piece of work out of nothingness and bits and pieces of code? What are the challenges we face and how do we conquer those challenges? Let me provide you with an insight into the world of what it is like for a developer to create a masterpiece out of nothing more than an idea.
Michael Lopp, author of Being Geek: A Software Developer’s Career Handbook, says that version 1.0 does not want to exist. What he means to say is that, the first draft of an app or any piece of software for that matter has to be physically bullied into coming into existence. For us developers, that is the thrill of creating an app. Of being able to create an app that may well receive a million downloads in a short span of time, where previously none of it existed and it was nothing but an idea in the form of a prototype on a scrap of paper. The initial stage of development, where all you really have to work with is the idea for the app and perhaps a prototype penned down in the form of some visuals and text, is the biggest challenge for most developers.
Yet another challenge to being a mobile app developer is that despite all your bullying and cajoling and coding, the first version of your painstakingly created app may well not work out. And as a developer, you have to be ready to accept this fact, get back to the project drawing board and hit restart. It’s quite possible that you might get attached to the first version of your app, but for whatever reason, it may not be right and you have to kill it. And you have to be comfortable doing this, because version 2.0 is almost certainly going to be a more pleasing effort.
More often than not, people prefer to hire a developer based more on his portfolio and experience rather than just his education qualifications. People want to see what you have done so they can judge your future output based on your past work. So one more challenge we face as developers is that it is simply not enough to have some fancy certifications and accreditation to your name; you will be judged based on your work and it has to be top notch. If a project simply isn’t meeting your standard of quality, either scrap it, or take it back to the drawing board. There are no two ways about it.
At the end of the day, it is not easy being a developer. It is however, rewarding to be able to create something with your bare hands and watch users go crazy about what a great job you have done. More often than not, that fact in itself is payment enough for all the hours of coding and testing a developer puts in!
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Manish Jain is the co-founder and Managing Director at Konstant Infosolutions. He is responsible for the overall operations of the company and has played a major role in bringing Konstant up from its humble beginnings and, with his immense energy and drive, transforming it into a globally trusted name in IT solutions.
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