A beginner developer's review of 2015

“2015 was my zodiac year. People say one's zodiac year is frightening, but after experiencing it, I did not find it so terrible. Life rarely goes exactly as planned; over a whole year, some things inevitably go wrong. Here is my year-end review, including both the good and the bad:”

In March 2015, I arrived in Shenzhen, a city at the forefront of technology, excited and ready to make my mark. Things did not go exactly as hoped, but I managed reasonably well. After a month of job hunting, I joined an outsourcing company. The pay was relatively low for the industry; I will not give the exact amount. I thought I would start there, since my skills were still average. I worked on two APPs and met our team leader, 星哥. We had technical training every week, and I learned a great deal from 星光. Around my third month at the company—I cannot remember the exact date—I started my own technical blog,technical blog is a wonderful thing, at least to me. It encourages me to write more technical articles, which in turn pushes me to learn more. The article that probably helped the most people during that period was “An illustrated guide to implementing iOS in-app purchases”. Many people solved their in-app purchase problems with that article. Others joined my QQ group, 511040024, and resolved their questions by asking me. That came later, of course. I also met friends from different regions in the group, which was gratifying. I spent 4 months at the company and got along well with my colleagues. For various reasons, I happened to submit a résumé and went to an interview. Unexpectedly, I was hired, and another chapter began.
A new company and environment took some getting used to. Fortunately, I met a colleague from my hometown, 叶哥, who looked after me. The company had just one APP, so work was not particularly busy and I spent time studying. I learned SWIFT and wrote several frameworks that I felt would be useful to many people, including “A Personal Profile Screen Inspired by GiftTalk”. OC and SWIFT , and many people liked them: they received more than 100 likes on Jianshu. I also wrote a post about 3dtouch, which reached the cocoa China homepage. At that time,3dtouch had only recently appeared, and I did not have a suitable phone, so the article was very basic.
After about 3 months at that company, 叶哥 resigned, mainly because of pointless overtime. I wanted to leave too. I stayed about another month, then resigned and spent roughly a month enjoying Shenzhen. It was around November by then, and finding work near year-end was difficult. Perhaps my expectations were a little high too. 😄
I spent more than half that month interviewing and some of the remaining time in internet cafés. The interview process was tedious. Many companies advertised impressive salaries but turned out to be quite different in person. After several rounds, they would ask my expected salary and immediately tell me to go home and wait for news. It was discouraging. Eventually I stopped printing résumés and simply went to interviews. 😄
After writing some technical blog posts, I found it awkward to present the blog during interviews. I therefore turned it into an app called IT Blog. The app now contains much more than my own technical posts. Articles mainly come from contributors and my own writing, and it also includes an iOS development Q&A community. My main work going forward is optimizing and maintaining the code. I originally planned a more polished release before the end of this year, but that now seems rushed, so it will have to wait until next year. When the app first launched, it received many inexplicably harsh comments: people called it rubbish, said it was useless, and hurled insults. I do not know why they wanted to disparage my product. The early versions were admittedly rough, but is that a reason to insult someone? What product is perfect from day one? Products improve gradually. The app is approaching 600 users, as shown below.

The user count is small, but it still gives me a sense of achievement. In 2016, I hope to run the app better, optimize its performance, and improve its interface. Here are some screenshots that my girlfriend helped prepare. I think they look beautiful. 😄

Before I finished the app, another company offered me a job. The pay was average, but the work was relaxed, with little overtime and weekends off. We worked on the company's own p2p product. The office atmosphere was easygoing, and it felt quite good.

Finally, thank you to all the contributors and readers for your support. I hope that in 2016 my technical skills will improve further and that every reader will find what they are looking for.

Recommended reading: Integrating LianLian Pay into an iOS app