Always Keep the Passion for Exploring New Things
The Turning Point from Entering the IT Field to Switching to iOS App Development
Bangkok 2018 - Z Realm — You Are Not Alone on the Road to Solving Problems
Time flies. It’s been a year since I switched from Back End to Mobile iOS APP development, and a month since I started writing on Medium. For my 10th small milestone post, let me share my thoughts on self-breakthrough and career transition.
Always Keep the Passion for Exploring New Things
“The instinct to explore drives humanity’s greatest achievements.” From Columbus discovering new continents by sea in ancient times, to the Wright brothers improving airplanes to conquer the sky, and now leaving Earth to explore outer space; only with passion for new things can we continuously surpass ourselves. We may not be as great as Armstrong, but as he said, “One small step for you, one giant leap for mankind.” Never underestimate your creative potential.
Opportunity
When opportunities come, you must seize them well because there’s no guarantee of a second chance; you might hesitate, thinking the next one could be better or fear making the wrong decision. But “Who know s? Does the sun rise first or does the accident come first.” If there are no negative consequences, then open your arms and grab the opportunity!
Back in 2009, when I just entered the first year of Chang Gong Comprehensive High School, I learned by chance that the school was training students to participate in competitions. My initial thought was, “Since there’s nothing to do at home, why not learn something?” So I signed up; this became the first turning point in my life and marked my entry into the IT field. Joining the training was tough—after school, weekends, and during winter and summer breaks, I practiced at school for three years. The risk was high; if I didn’t place in the competitions, I would gain almost nothing. But in hindsight, I’m glad I seized this opportunity. (I will share more about the emotional journey of being a competitor later.)
National Skills Competition - Workforce Development Agency, Ministry of Labor
This opportunity taught me many practical skills, including design tools like Illustrator, Photoshop, and Flash, as well as engineering skills such as PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery. I also earned a guaranteed admission to Taiwan Tech through winning competitions. Looking back, I’m really glad I seized this chance!
Fast forward to 2017, after graduating from university, I entered the workforce as a backend engineer. Since university, I had mainly specialized in backend development (Laravel) for web projects, and didn’t focus much on frontend, mostly using ready-made frameworks like Bootstrap and Semantic UI.
The bottleneck at that time was staying in the same field for too long without any breakthrough development, so I set a new goal for myself:
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Continuing to Dive Deeper into Backend Development
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Transition to Marketing (GA) / Planning Field
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Learning New Languages / Writing Apps
At this time, an opportunity arose again. The project I joined was about to start developing a mobile platform app. Initially, I planned to write the API backend using Laravel, which was also a breakthrough for me with some new technologies. Here, I want to mention something important: when making decisions, you need to have a long-term vision. At first, I chose to continue with backend development out of laziness and because I felt the entry cost was high—no Mac at the time and it was a completely new field. Fortunately, with guidance from my supervisor, I ultimately chose to step into iOS app development.
As of 2018, it has been exactly one year since I started developing iOS apps. What I gained includes learning a new language, Swift, iOS app development, the satisfaction of publishing my own app, and starting to write on Medium. I’m glad I seized this opportunity, as it opened another door for my career!
Reflections on Transitioning from Backend Engineering to iOS App Development
“Isn’t programming all the same?” Different fields feel like different worlds…
Having someone guide you early on helps because many concepts differ from web development. You’ll face a period of frustration—hang in there! Success will come into sight!
I myself struggled for almost a month. After getting some basics down, you’ll hit a second wall. At this point, you need to be more resilient, learn from mistakes, and trade time for experience (if you lack time, consider taking an introductory course or finding a mentor).
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Development Environment: In the past, when writing PHP, we used Sublime, typed a bit, pressed Ctrl+S, then Ctrl+Tab to switch to the browser and Ctrl+R to quickly see the result. Now, using Xcode, we need to deploy to the simulator or device to see the result. This actually helps improve my impatient nature XD.
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Language: Swift is more modern, strongly typed, and structured. It might feel unfamiliar at first, but once you get used to it, it’s no problem.
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Storyboard/Interface Builder: This part lowers the entry barrier for beginners. Starting with coding the UI can be more difficult; here you can visually work with the UI, learn layout, and drag Outlets.
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Memory and Page Layout Structure: This is a key area to pay attention to and where I say you trade time for experience. In web development, there were almost no limits—you could do whatever you wanted. For example, with tables, you just use
<table>and run a PHP loop to display data. But in an app, you need to use the UITableView component to implement this (I once used UIView to layout everything and happily told my manager I was done! Then I found a huge memory explosion).
Also, be extra careful about memory leaks! -
App Launch: APP development requires more caution and thorough testing; unlike websites where errors can be fixed immediately, iOS app versions must pass review. Bugs cannot be fixed by downgrading, so fixing a bug takes at least a day, which greatly affects users!
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User Feedback: Users can give you the most direct comments
Five-star warmth, one heartache
Summary
Life is interesting because it is full of uncertainties. When opportunities come, choosing to seize them will bring rewards; choosing to let go might lead to better chances next time. There is no right or wrong—just trust your intuition: “Choose what you love, love what you choose.”
Expectations for Myself
I’m still quite new and will keep working on iOS app development, aiming to learn, grow, and find breakthroughs in the future while maintaining the habit of writing on Medium. What will the next opportunity be? I’m really looking forward to it!
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