How i started
It was the summer break right before high school, and I’d just received some insurance money from a hearing related incident. I decided to buy a MacBook so that i could try to learn how to code. I wasn’t aiming for anything grand at the time. I just wanted a bit more control, the ability to make things myself without relying on traditional systems that never really resonated with me.
Summer break
Once I had my laptop, I discovered that Stanford University uploads each and every one of their computer science iOS development lectures on their website. Hour long recordings of each of their lectures. So I just started working through them, completing about two lessons each week.
Honestly, i absoloutly hated it most of the time 😁. Trying to understand why things worked the way they did was incredibly frustrating. Mutable, imutable, delegates, weak references. It drove me crazy at times (most of the time 😁). But im so thankful that i went through it & so thankful for living in a time where its possible to just learn anything online
Swift
Swift, the language Stanford used in their lectures, is filled with strict rules designed specifically to encourage good coding habits and thoughtful architecture. It forced me to grasp foundational concepts, things like mutability, delegation, and memory management through references, in a way that other languages didn't.
Unlike JavaScript or more loosely structured languages, Swift made sure I built things properly from the start. In hindsight, I’m genuinely thankful I started with Swift; transitioning later into other languages felt much more intuitive because Swift had already shaped how I thought about code.
After making it through the Stanford lectures, I started building apps constantly. I think I got kind of addicted to it, the rush of making something work, or the idea that something small I built could grow into something bigger. It started with simpler apps and gradually evolved into more complex tools over time.
