A story of the journey from a legacy programmer to mobile app developer.

1. mobile app developer
Life’s a journey
January 1, 2016
Joey Rigor
Kontak Mobile Apps
from legacy programmer to

2. This is a story of my
journey from a
legacy programmer
to mobile app
developer.

3. Hope it inspires old
programmers like
me that age is just a
number and
conquering new
worlds can never be
too late.

4. I started programming in college in the
80s using an Apple clone.
Learned Basic, the
proverbial language
for newbies at the
time, and made
accounting
programs for small
businesses.

5. 1995 was the year
I started building
software
professionally.
I just finished graduate
studies in New York
University and worked
for New York Life for a
short while.

6. Went back home to the
Philippines to take a
break.
Never thought that this
journey home will change
the course of my life.

7. SunLife of Canada, the second biggest life
insurance company in our country, was in need of
a proposal illustration system for its agents.
I had a chance encounter with the IT head of SunLife
(who became its President/CEO) and we started to talk.
Told her that I already made the system in New York.

8. Thought I'l just
finish this project
and go back to
the Big Apple.

9. But other companies were interested and
bought the same system - ManuLife,
Insular Life, Coco Life, Aetna Life and
Nippon Life.
I was working days and nights
(grabbing a few winks then and there,
paradoxically living a mobile life when
mobile was not even a trend yet!).

10. Sadly, after almost ten years building and
maintaining the same system, I was burned out.
Met one of life’s many crossroads, went on
hiatus and started a farming life.

11. But eventually I got tired of trying to use
computing theories to farm management.
I went back to the city in 2010 to
upgrade my software, ported it to C#
and created a web app.
Back to my old love.

12. But the vision of building a mobile app remained.
Tried out Android because of its large user base. But
its security problem and limited development tools
became a major barrier for building a business app.
Oops, wrong turn.
Still, a confluence of events led me to this road.

13. One day, a friend made
a rather prophetic
comment.
“Most of our financial
advisors start with an
Android phone but
eventually bought an
iPhone after generating a
lot of sales”.

14. Hmm, there is something here.
iOS - stable.. secure.. phones and
tablets bought by rich guys.
But a part of me held back. I’ve
been using Windows all my
computing life from its first
version up to Windows 7. Now I
have learn a new OS.

15. Mentioning my dilemma
over a couple of brews , an
old friend gave me a used
MacBook and said
“Try it out”.
It was supposed to be for
my daughter but I
secretly used it at night
when she was fast
asleep. Sneaky.

16. Tried a few trivial programs and
I was hooked!
This is a great OS, has a
stable development framework,
Xcode, and it’s already in version 7!

17. After months of learning, debugging and
pushing Xcode (and myself) to its limit, I
finally ported my system to iOS.

18. The journey came full circle.
I learned programming with a 1980s
Apple clone.
Ended up 35 years later with an
Apple MacBook building mobile apps.

19. “Now I think I have reached another crossroad.
From the legacy programmer.. to farmer.. to
mobile app developer.
That sounds good.”

20. AboutMe
As a software developer, I have always been interested
in learning new things regarding technology. In how I
can share what I’ve learned specially to others with
professions outside my field.
This interest became a passion as I see a lot of people
using technology in their daily lives but have no idea
how it works. Much less how it was build. Sadly, almost
all of us are mere consumers.
My previous blogs and those to follow will try to
convince everybody, in my own small way, to learn how
to code. How to become creators of technology.

21. http://www.kontakios.com
Now what?
This is the initial part of a series of posts
trying to convince you to be a coder.
Hope you are ready,
grasshopper.
To know more about our company and
other blogs, just click the link below.