The Other 80%

Since the weekends are when I take a break from my day job coding iPhone apps, I spent this afternoon watching videos of people talking about how to code iPhone apps. If you haven't already checked out iDeveloper TV (previously the Mac Developer Network), you should.

I was particularly taken by the Pimp My App talk given by Mike Lee (who, I have to concede, probably is the World's Toughest Programmer and could easily have wee Matt Gemmell in a fight). One day I'll have to get him to visit our office, where he can wreak bloody vengeance, since most of the apps we churn out feature his bête noir, the splash screen. Most also have a little animated logo, too. With any luck he'll flatten the entire building.

But the real takeaway was the idea that polishing your app is "the other 80%": that those finishing touches should take as much time and effort as the rest of development up to that point. I completely agree with this, which makes the realities of the kind of client-driven development I do so much harder to bear. We're lucky if the first 80% of a project doesn't expand to take up 100%+ of the time allotted to it. Finishing an app is usually an almighty rush involving tracking down bugs, adding last minute feature requests, and then tracking down the bugs you just added with the last minute features. I've yet to complete a project which I can honestly say I'm fully happy with. And since I work with so many talented, creative people, I can't help feeling that this is a crying shame, and that ultimately I'm letting the side down with these implementation failures. It really shouldn't be this way.

(And on a related note, the Gordon Ramsay Cook With Me HD iPad app, my last big project, went live yesterday, complete with an inexplicable bug which silenced the sound effects. Again I manage to snatch failure from the jaws of success. This is doubly bad, since I'm on record as not being a fan of them. I didn't do it deliberately, honest.)