Aleen Mean

My best friend is amazing for a ton of reasons. She’s smart, sciency, compassionate, creative…. She’s been dabbling in code for a couple of months and recently decided to delve into Swift. She even has a great iOS app idea that she came up with after helping her kids with school.

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The other day, she told me, “I think my fear with [getting started in] coding/design is that I know I’m not good enough.”

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Whoa there! That’s a heavy statement, right? As much as I understand where she’s coming from, I’m here to say that this particular bit of knowledge is completely wrong. Here are my thoughts:

Learning is hard

It is really hard to learn how to code. Picking a language and learning the fundamentals on a level where they actually make sense is difficult and overwhelming. In my own journey learning Objective-C, I’ve often felt like someone has dropped me in the middle of deep water when I don’t even know how to dog paddle.

However, this feeling lessens as you learn how to quickly search Stack Overflow for answers and the more you practice by actually writing code.

*Image used with permission from [Daily Parallels](https://instagram.com/dailyparallels/)*

Perfect code is a myth

In all my years working with developers, I have known exactly one who has ever claimed to write bug-free, perfect code. It will likely come as no surprise to anyone to learn that he wasn’t a very good programmer and he was really difficult to work with.

Even the most well-known developers write bad code. I’m sure that some of them write nothing but bad code. They don’t let that stop them from creating apps and making them available for others to purchase because they know that there is no such thing as perfect code. At the end of the day, what really matters is that your app (or website, or whatever) is able to do the thing you want it to do without crashing or being slow.

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Professional design isn’t necessary

Take a gander at the mobile apps available right now. For every well-designed, beautiful app out there, you’ll find hundreds or thousands that look like they were created by kindergarteners who have no clue that some colors clash. You’ll download one and poke around in slack-jawed wonder as you try to figure out how this is really the best knitting row counter you could find (not that I’m projecting). I still go to “modern” websites for relatively new products that look like they were built with Dreamweaver 2.0 and a prayer.

Making sure your product makes sense is far more important than making sure that it looks like it has a team of professional designers. You can always change your assets later.

Operating in a vacuum is a mistake

You definitely can sit alone, hammering away at your keyboard, but that’s probably the biggest mistake you can make. Find community, ask questions, and even have people look at your code. Other developers will have suggestions for different ways to approach things. You’ll have the opportunity to level up your knowledge while making your end product even better.

One thing I love about working with a team of talented software engineers is being able to see pull requests. It isn’t uncommon to see comments like, “Try Method A instead of Method B. It’ll work better because….” By having a collaborative mindset, the programs we produce are better than they would be if everyone was left to their own devices.

Present you is the enemy of future you

If you’re doing it right, you will continually learn. This is a journey. There will definitely be milestones along the way (you built a website! a script! an app! an Apple Watch complication!), but there’s no point at which you’ll be able to put your fists on your hips and proclaim, “I am the Master of the Development Universe!”

This means that you will constantly write better code. When you need to look at your old code, you will cringe and wonder what you were thinking. Sometimes, you’ll need to rip it all out like bad electrical work and start over again. This is normal.

For perfectionists, it’s also paralyzing. “I’m not good enough to start now. Maybe in a few months, after I’ve learned more.”

Sorry, Charlie. With that attitude, you’ll never be good enough. Get started now. Slog through, write bad code, delete it all, start over again. This is learning. This is growing. This is development.

You can do it.

I’m of an age where I can remember my first encounter with a computer. I was still small enough that I could go into work with my mom and take naps under her desk, maybe three or four years old. One day, Mom showed me the monitor of a computer. I don’t remember much, just a few pixelated cars on a color screen, but I was absolutely transfixed.

And that’s just where it started: I remember Mom explaining to me that the computer someone donated to a preschool wouldn’t run any programs because there were no disks for the machine (whatever that meant), amber text against black backgrounds, and typing in random gibberish because I didn’t quite have a grasp on sentence composition. I remember sitting at the computer learning the alphabet in my kindergarten classroom in lieu of going to the crafts table, playing Where in the World is Carmen San Diego and Number Munchers in computer class when I was older, and the sound of dot matrix printers making Print Shop creations come to life. I remember having to stay inside from recess when I got sick in the winter and playing Oregon Trail on the green-screened classroom computer.

I remember the computer Mom’s employer let her bring home so that she could work (a Macintosh Classic or Classic II) and how much my cat, Princess, loved the fireworks screensaver. I remember when that computer went away and was replaced by 100-series PowerBook and how magical it was to have access to a computer that could sit on my lap. I remember the first time I changed a font in a word processing program and the novelty of printing to a page that wasn’t attached to hundreds of other pages.

I remember the first time I was able to access the Internet, during a summertime computer class I took with a friend in a town over an hour away. I learned about search engines (AltaVista, thankyouverymuch) and felt overwhelmed by the enormity of possibility.

I remember our first computer, the one that wasn’t one of the few perks of Mom’s job as an educator. It was just before I graduated from the 8th grade and we put a call into Gateway for a quote. For whatever reason, they built and sent the computer to us even though Mom made it clear that she wasn’t planning on ordering that day. Computers were expensive and Mom didn’t want to keep it, but it ended up staying in our house. After a while, we found an Internet service provider and I was busy keeping our only phone line occupied, miscounting the number of minutes I was dialed in, talking in chat rooms, and teaching myself HTML. I spent my 16th birthday on the phone with Gateway tech support after I’d managed to install a particularly persistent virus (and learned a valuable lesson about opening files from strangers) and quickly learned the value of reformatting my computer’s hard drive.

While computers haven’t been ubiquitous my entire life, many of my memories are tied to them. I was so fortunate to have a mom who told me, from an early age, that I should absolutely grow up to work with computers. In some ways I think I was lucky to have few friends, as it was harder for society to tell me that I shouldn’t pursue a career in technology because of my gender.

Because the fact of the matter is that the toxic background message for girls is that they aren’t suited for technical careers. We show them princess movies where women have to be rescued, give them dolls to mother, and encourage them to be quiet and demure. To make matters worse, even though women were the first programmers, there aren’t a lot of female role models in tech nowadays. In the movies and on TV, computer programmers are almost always unkempt dudes, not inquisitive women who come up with the improbable solution at the last second.

This is why I’m such a ardent supporter of App Camp for Girls, a program that shows girls entering the 8th and 9th grades that programming is a fun way to bring their thoughts and ideas to life. It teaches them that they are capable of writing code when so often they’re told that doing so is not for them. Most importantly, App Camp for Girls shows these kids that they are not alone. I always felt weird because of my interest in computers but many, many other girls shared my fascination; I just didn’t know any of them.

Yesterday, the App Camp for Girls 3.0 Indiegogo campaign hit its halfway point. We’re trying to raise just under $50,000 more, which will mean that more camps can start in more places. If you can spare some money, please consider donating to help us reach our goal. I know it’s overused, but every little bit helps. Don’t have an extra buck or two? That’s okay! You can still have an impact. My friend Virginia Roberts wrote an excellent blog post with ideas of ways you can support both the women volunteering and the girls participating in camps.

I’m so happy to be a part of such an amazing organization as well as the larger Apple community. Technology is nothing short of the combination of magic and science, and it’s only going to get more magical as it becomes more inclusive. This is just the start of amazing things.

It’s my habit to trail after Justin when we’re in crowds. He’s tall and looks intimidating, so the sea of bodies tends to part as he makes his way through. This means that I don’t have to think about the crush of people as we walk and it frees me up to people watch, which is one of my favorite things to do.

In 2011, things were no different. As he made his way to the correct area of Moscone West to register for Apple’s Word Wide Developer Conference, I looked around and noticed that there were alarmingly few women in the mass of people. I vowed then and there that I would attend the event someday.

This year, I had my chance. Apple partnered with over 20 organizations dedicated to helping increase diversity in tech to offer scholarships to their members and alumni. Because of my involvement with App Camp for Girls, I was eligible for one even though I’m not a developer and I don’t really have any experience programming in Objective-C or Swift. In order to apply, I had to write an app about myself and submit it. I did so in less than two weeks.

And I won one of 350 scholarships, which was truly not what I expected.

I’ve used the word surreal to talk about my week as a WWDC attendee over and over again, but it’s the best I can come up with. Instead of Justin, I was the one rolling out of bed to attend sessions and meet people I’d heretofore known only online. After years of watching them online, I sat in the same room as a keynote.

I even got a horrific selfie with Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at the WWDC Bash.

There were so many non-conference things to do: parties, fundraisers, wandering the town looking for late-night milkshakes (Mel’s was always there for us)….

I spoke at AltConf to help people learn how to make tech more welcoming for everyone and appeared on a panel with Brianna Wu of Giant Spacekat and Jean MacDonald, founder of App Camp for Girls.

I even got access to the 1Password for iOS source code and made a few minor changes that’ll be released in the next update.

Diversity was a hot topic this year. Formality varied from Christina Warren’s exclusive interview with Tim Cook to my AltConf talk to conversations around town. While there were more women in attendance this year than in 2011 there were still very few of us, and I saw a whole lot of white people while wandering the halls.

A beautifully staged picture was posted to Tim Cook’s Twitter account on Monday, but it was hardly representative of the gender breakdown of scholarship recipients. I stopped going to to the scholarship lounge because it was full of teenaged boys and I felt like a complete creeper sitting in there. Girls were definitely awarded scholarships, but the disparity in numbers was pronounced.

I’m optimistic, though. In the four years since I set my goal to attend the conference, gender diversity at WWDC has increased noticeably. Awareness is even greater now, and amazing programs like App Camp for Girls will only increase the number of young women applying for scholarships and pursuing development careers. I think we’ll continue to notice a difference on that front. Over the next year, I’d really like to see the conversation shift toward including people of color more so that they can also see increased representation in technical spaces.

I’m truly excited to see where we will all be next June, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to fulfill one of my dreams. My thanks to Apple and its employees, who I know worked hard to make the event memorable for us all.

When the WWDC keynote started with a video from Bill Hader, I tweeted, “This is a new Apple.”

Today, Phil Schiller took the stage with John Gruber at The Talk Show live. I don’t think this is something that would have happened even a year or two ago.

Steve Jobs was all about products, design, and experiences. It obviously served Apple well, but I think things are starting to shift as Tim Cook really falls into his role as the new leader of the company. It’s been long enough now that those who believed Apple would be doomed under his watch are no longer of any import–clearly the company is alive and well.

In the last year, Tim (can I call him Tim?) has done more to put a human face on the company than Steve Jobs ever did. Last year, he ended years of speculation about his sexuality with a wonderfully written article in Bloomberg. He’s talked about his commitment to increasing diversity in technical spaces. Just a few days ago, he stated that the dearth of diversity in the tech community was one that we created ourselves. Apple is taking steps to improve that (I’m attending WWDC on a scholarship because of my involvement with App Camp for Girls), and yesterday’s keynote had female engineers on stage for the first time since 2007.

I believe that we’ll look back on Tim Cook’s time at Apple and see how it became about people and not about things.

I’m excited to be a small part of this, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

I wasn’t going to do it. The day before we stopped in Belize and spent hours traveling to and exploring Mayan ruins. I hadn’t slept more than a few hours in close to a week, and I wanted to take full advantage of a day at port to get some much needed rest.

As is so often the case, sleep proved elusive and I headed to the coffee shop much earlier than I’d planned to. So early, in fact, that I met some of my friends who were waiting to go on an excursion. I made a split-second decision to go with them instead of staying aboard the ship.

Soon, we were off to take a ride to the coral reefs off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico. We walked down to the belly of a boat and sat facing windows looking out into the depths of Caribbean Sea. I saw stingrays, barracudas, and so many tropical fish. The coral off of Cozumel was a drab black rather than the neon hues I picture when I think of tropical reefs, but the water! The water was such a glorious blue-green that the white of my phone’s screen looked pink when I pulled it out to capture video. When we got off the boat the world was so brilliantly white it hardly seemed real.

This morning, I was surrounded by a similar blue-green light thanks to a towel Justin draped over the master bathroom’s window to keep the early morning light at bay. The reminder of the majesty of the sea and being with friends whom I adore was a fantastic way to start the day.