Bryan's Blurbs

Back from the Big Nerd Ranch :) lol (April 29th, 2008)

I recently attended the Objective-C / Cocoa Bootcamp at the Big Nerd Ranch in Atlanta, GA. My instructors were Aaron Hillegass and Mark Fenoglio. Although I do have some criticisms of the course, I have to say that overall I loved it and it was worth every penny.

Aaron Hillegass is an amazing teacher and a fascinating man. Mark Fenoglio is an awesome guy and a lot of fun. The accommodations are first class and the food is incredible. The setting is amazing (Historic Banning Mills) although don't let the "Atlanta" location fool you. You are at least an hour away from Atlanta and having Verizon Wireless as my Cell Phone Carrier, I only had a signal if I climbed up the "hill" a little ways. This is truly in the middle of nowhere, but that is what is required if you intend to learn everything that the course has to offer in 7 days. We covered a small Objective-C book and almost all of Aaron's Book, Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X. We used the Final Draft of the Third Edition of the book which has yet to be released, which was pretty AWESOME. The course is very intense. You will cover about 6 chapters per day with Aaron. Make sure you take some time to get to know Aaron. Ask him about his history and NeXT.

Photos from my trip:

.Mac Big Nerd Ranch Photo Gallery - Built for my Mom.

I chose the Objective-C / Cocoa Bootcamp combination because I didn't have any previous programming experience. It was my understanding that this would be the best course for me because it would give me an introduction to Objective-C. Unfortunately there was no real introduction to the language. It was mainly geared towards people who had experience in Java, PHP, or C and the differences between these languages, not someone without any experience. (I would definitely suggest learning as much about Objective-C as you can before you go.) Although disappointing, if you're smart enough, just keep going and it will start to make sense and you'll figure out the language along the way. I still have yet to find any course or book that would fit my needs. Every book that I've looked at assumes that you have some previous programming experience. Although understandable, I really don't have any interest in completing an entire book on C or Objective C before starting to create programs in Cocoa using Interface Builder and I don't think anyone else does either. That's pretty much where my criticisms end.

So let's talk about the location a little bit. Here is some stuff that I would have found useful had I known before going:

You will have your own, private cabin with an awesome jacuzzi tub.

Most of the cabins have Wifi internet Access. It is a shared T1 that seems to have 1.5 Megabits Up and Down.

You need to bring with you what you would normally take to a hotel room. Everything else is provided.

The meals are cooked by a chef and are fantastic. You really don't have a choice of what you get, but if you don't like one meal, you'll love the next. There are 3 meals a day and you will not go hungry. I actually started skipping breakfast, I found that I was never actually hungry at lunch.

Soda, tea, water, lemonade and coffee is always available and is complimentary. The Diet Coke goes fast.

The Lemonade is awesome.

The staff of Historic Banning Mills is FANTASTIC. If you would like something different, don't be afraid to ask. They are the epitome of Georgia, Southern Hospitality.

Definitely take advantage of the hikes that are offered on a daily basis. It's a good bonding time and basically the only exercise you will get while you are there.

Also, make sure that you do the treetop, canopy tour. Scared of heights or not, it is awesome and worth the fear factor. It's also a great way to bond with the other guys taking the course.

Here are some other tidbits as well:

Sharpen your typing skills before you go. If you frequently make mistakes or can't touch type, you will struggle in the later exercises. A simple capitalization or syntax error can cause your project to not build or even worse, build, but not work.

Be prepared to meet some true nerds. I know that sounds weird, but it was a bit unexpected for me. Although I've always considered myself a geek and a nerd, some of these guys literally will sit in front of there computers from 9am until 11pm. Some of them would barely say a word at dinner, but then when you would open up iChat, they wouldn't shut up. lol

Be ready for a lot of cheesy, nerd jokes from your classmates. The jokes made me cringe.

Open yourself up and talk to the people around you. The other people in my class were awesome and I wish we had some more time together. Everyone is there because they truly WANT to be there. It is worth getting to know everyone in your class. Some of the most interesting and funny people, I didn't really get to start to get to know until the last day.

Keep the distractions at a minimum during class. No Email, chatting or cell phones.

Once class is over or during breaks, definitely turn on iChat in Bonjour mode. Encourage others to as well.

Hang out with each other after class. Networking and Brainstorming is a crucial part of the experience.

Our Schedule: (Yours may vary)

8:30am - Breakfast

9:00am - Class

12:30pm - Lunch

1:00pm - Back to Class

2:00pm - Hike

3:00pm - Back to Class

6:30pm - Dinner

7:00pm - Free Time

From 7:00 until 11:00pm, the lodge is open and you are free to use the classroom to work on projects. Mark was there until 11:00pm with us. Aaron stayed until 9:00pm. If you have any questions or need more personal help, now was that time. I personally did not want to look at another line of code after 7pm. Only once did I stay in the classroom and work. Not that I wasn't dedicated, but after working on it all day, I needed a break. Sometimes I would hang out in the classroom and play in Aperture, etc.

Photos from my trip:

.Mac Big Nerd Ranch Photo Gallery - Built for my Mom.

Some other interesting notes:

I got to meet Brian Ball of MacZot and AppZapper (Marketing), who I believe I had heard of before. At least his name was familiar. If you do a Google Search for him, he seems to be a very controversial man, but in reality he is really awesome. If you own a Mac, you should own AppZapper.

We had a guy there named Erik who didn't even own a Mac. He was there with the iMac that the Ranch provided and his Orange Toshiba (I think) Windows Laptop. I'm still not sure what the hell he was doing there.

We had a few international students. 2 from Canada and 1 from Belgium (I think).

There were 19 people in our class. Including myself, there were 3 confirmed fags. :) That's more than the typical 10% rule. There was also one other that was highly suspicious, but never confirmed.

If you have any questions about my experience at the Big Nerd Ranch please feel free to contact me at brygruver@gmail.com