Not iOS, but I'm fairly confident I could be productive in an Android codebase in a week.
The only reason I don't think I could do iOS is because I'd need to use a OSX, and I think it would take me longer to become productive in OSX.
It also depends on what you mean by "productive", would I want to lead a team to create a new app from scratch? Probably not. Go into an existing app and start fixing bugs and creating new features? Sure.
I did a trial week before joining my current gig full-time. I had pretty much no typescript experience, came into a large TS react/nodejs app and had a pull request on the 2nd day for a new feature.
I wouldn't try to work on a Haskell or OCaml codebase, they are different enough that I'm not confident I could pick them up quickly. But most mainstream languages are similar enough that it really shouldn't be that hard to pick them up and be productive.
As long as someone understands the platform you can do this. I've seen way too much iOS code written by smart people new to iOS with no clue how to structure and ship a successful mobile app. This is likely true for most platforms. A smart developer can learn in time but usually you don't get that time so it's better if at least someone has done whatever it is before. I am sure I could master Android in time but if I started building an app on day 1 it would likely be terrible.
People continue to be in disbelief when I tell them we took five amazing people who have little to no experience with code and helped them become employable iOS developers in 8 weeks during our pilot program this past fall at the Mobile Makers Academy (http://mobilemakers.co)
I've had this conversation with so many people and the feedback is typically "iOS is so much harder than Ruby on Rails, you need more than 8 weeks". I'm assuming this comes from the lack of experience with compiled languages, memory management, etc.
What are your thoughts on being able to learn iOS in 8 weeks and becoming a jr. developer? Is it possible?
This is great. Especially with services like Parse out there, I could see how a sufficiently motivated/creative person could start from zero programming experience and become a skilled iOS developer in the course of a summer.
Thanks for all your answers, I'm looking to do more "proper" iOS development as time goes on rather than just winging it for one app and never returning :) As suggested by callmeed, I'm going to try and book a week off from my day job as trying to learn something like this in the few hours I have free in evenings isn't going to happen (at least not productively) and I've got a target of what I hope to get done by the end of the week - thanks for your suggestions everyone, and I'll be in touch shortly callmeed :)
I know I don't have as much experience as some of the other HN users here, but I think it's definitely possible to succeed with no experience as long as you're willing to try.
My cofounder and I have a similar story. We are building our first iPhone app with no prior design or programming experience and it's taken us 11 weeks so far. We've improved leaps and bounds and we've rewritten parts of the code over and over again if we find a better way to do it. There's bound to be some bugs here and there like all apps, but I'm confident we'll launch a solid product. We've had our first startup already where we hired freelancers and it was a flop, before we decided to finally do everything ourselves and force ourselves to learn to design and code.
I just started a blog about it today (blog.grooovy.me). Either way, I wish you good luck.
There are big, big differences between the native iOS programming model, the native Android programming model, and the web programming model.
They're not just "a few minor technical details." The toolchains are different, the UI design details are different, the event model is different, the model/backend details are different, and there are significant conceptual differences.
I would be astonished if someone could move from web dev to iOS dev in a week with no previous experience. A good coder can probably bolt together a twinky do-nothing hello world app that quickly from a cold start, but they'll be a long way short of what's needed for a solid commercial-grade app with useful features.
Yes: the iOS app and the server side in a weekend (and one day actually).
I'm doing mobile app development for now 2 years (and other programming stuff for 5 years) so I guess that I managed to do it in a weekend thanks to my experience.
I think you vastly underestimate the time it takes to learn these sorts of things. Sure, you can teach someone to write a simple, passable iOS app that does a few basic things in a couple weeks. But they're still going to be a raw-novice iOS developer. Maybe the app you need them to build is super simple, but if not, you're doing yourself and your company a disservice by not hiring someone who's done iOS before.
I'm speaking from experience here: I learned iOS (even after having previous MacOS X desktop devel experience) on the job, when a friend asked me to write an iOS app for her startup. I learned quickly, but made a lot of mistakes in how I structured the app that came back to bite me months later. If I'd had the time to start over from scratch, I would have done things quite differently and the whole thing would have been a lot easier.
And I was slow. Every new framework I had to learn slowed me down and added days to implementing the part of the app that needed it. A seasoned iOS developer wouldn't have run into problems like that.
Two weeks is plenty of time for a novice iOS developer with a bit of programming experience to publish tic-tac-toe. I think struggling to learn the existing well used tools would be the best use of his two weeks. Try something outside the normal path on the next one once you get something out there.
I know you are pretty much promoting your company here, but iOS development is much much easier than web development. IF you work through any of the available beginner books , you should be able to make your first basic app in less time than 8 weeks.
I've only written one fairly simple iOS app for my own use, just to get a feeling for it, but IMO getting familiar with the platform is not easy, but doable; I did have extensive mac experience, though (since the early 90s). An experienced programmer with knowledge of other fields can get quite a lot done in ... let's say: two months?
But we don't know what OP wants. Is it a game? Is it a social network? Is it a temperature conversion app? Because those require very different skill sets, and the iOS app may not be the hard part.
I think in this case it's like driving a car, flying a plane, speaking Mandarin, or performing surgery- at which point is someone proficient enough to call themselves a developer?
Knowing only about 1% of the commands, code, and frameworks available to a top iOS developer can still produce some impressive results.
Teaching a child to write a fart app in 8 weeks- easy.
Teaching a child to write a top 10 app in 8 weeks- next to impossible.
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