DevSIG/CocoaHeads event was held last Friday at Apple Malaysia. I attended the session with various expectations and objectives, some of it was to get to know local Mac developer scene and to get a kick-start of my Mac development venture. I am the new kid on the block. A noob. Albeit my envious towards Mac for years, practically I have no background experience in it. Been heard the beauty of it, Been seen the jaw-dropping GUI and effects that it has and I have been told that it has rock solid foundation of Unix and a personality of Mac. Hands on experience? Nada.
Last month was a milestone in my computing history. I got myself a Mac. Proudly named it - Neera, based on the character in Walt Disney's animation film, Dinosaurs. Ok back to the DevSIG/CocoaHeads get together or I prefer to call it a meetup (sounds geekier I suppose). There was about 8 people turn up that day which was particularly held at Apple Malaysia's training room. I barely know a single person, except maybe one of the speaker, Chris, whom as far as I'm concerned is the one who initiates the DevSIG/CocoaHeads Malaysia.
The first two sessions was given by Jinny, where she talks about the application that she builds using Core Data. It is a Dive Log, intended for divers. I didn't really understand about the chart and stuff. How much gases left and all. But I know it's the easier way for divers to key in and calculate their log after diving. Then she presents Dashcode. It's a development tool to create a widget and because it is so easy, she calls it a no brainer :D . Despite of the WYSIWYG, drags and drops, developer also can dive in the codes.
Then Chris gave a talk on how to detect memory leaks in application. Demonstrating with his own developed application, he showed various tools that can be use for that purpose. After the presentation, I have quite an understanding on how important memory management is in software development. He also shares his experience conducting courses in Boston and Shanghai as well as few tips on learning Cocoa. Later did I learned that he is one of MIT alumni. Tabik sikit.
After that, we went for 'yum-char' at mamak restaurant nearby before Chris gave Val, Edward and me a ride to Midvalley. Jinny and Andrew went with separate car. Where could that place be if not MPH, before unintendedly we started informal discussion behind those racks of computer section. They talk about multithreading, objective-c and few more stuff. I started to think "I am so left behind". I noticed some people glimpse at us...haha, wondering what were they thinking. " Wow, that's cool" or "Gila poyo mamat-mamat ni". Suka hatilah nak fikir apa pun kan.
Later, Kevin and Jeya turn up, decided for a place to help the empty stomach and we were off. Chats. Jokes. Discussions. Mac. It's 12.20 am. Ohh no... thinking of how am I going to Rasyd's house. Luckily Chris offers to send me there. Fuhh, what a day.
"Hi I'm a Mac"
"Hi, I'm your owner"
"Nice to meet you" Neera. With the sweetest smile Aben had ever seen.
"Nice to meet you too...at last" Aben. Smiling.
