Busy iPhone Programming

A fair amount of my time over the last week has spent pretty busily on iPhone programming. Believe it or not, this is actually a change of pace. Yes, I've spent a good chunk of time over the last year writing fragments of code to exemplify iPhone in Action as well as numerous articles, but that's not actually the same thing as sitting down to produce a fully functional program.

I really enjoy logic puzzles, and so for me one of the things that's really great about object-oriented programming is figuring out how to create really modular, reusable classes that I can program once and use many times. Yes, it makes the first program take more time, but hopefully it makes every one afterward easier.

So, though I have a specific roleplaying program that I'm working on, much of my last week has spent working on two classes: one to run a splash screen on the iPhone, another to better automate use of the iPhone's database.

Ironically, this has led me straight back to articles about the iPhone, but this time they're articles based on code rather than code based on articles.

Here's my three-part series on creating a splash screen on the iPhone, complete with a creative-commons licensed class that you can plug-in to create a splash screen almost immediately:

• Creating a Splash Screen, Part One
• Creating a Splash Screen, Part Two
• Creating a Splash Screen, Part Three

Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, by Amara Lakhous

This was a book that I picked up based on a description in NPR. I actually requested it from the library about 6 months ago; they're usually better than that.

In any case, it intrigued me because it's the story of a murder in a Piazza Italy, centering on interviews with the nine people in the Piazza concerning the suspected murderer. I was drawn to it because of the "interesting structure" of the story, always one of my likes in reading.

Overall, I thought it was OK. It's a (translated) Italian book, and there's a lot in it about immigrants and Italy, which I found sort of interesting, but which Italians would probably find much more meaningful.

The "mystery" was just something to give substance to the book. The structure, with everyone offering different points of views of the same person, wasn't as unique as I hoped; I've seen it done elsewhere, and with more subtlety.

Nonetheless, a book worth reading.