Top 10 Reasons You Should Do A Cocoa Coding Day

Cincinnati Cocoa Dev Coding Day

Our local NSCoder style group, Cincinnati CocoaDev, meets once a month. Usually someone presents on a particular topic on a weekday evening, we spend some time talking around pizza — the usual stuff. This month, we decided to do an informal coding day on Saturday, June 25th at Cincinnati Coworks since one of our members is a part of the group there as well. We had no particular agenda in mind, other than coding together for several hours.

I had a good time and it was a nice break from my usual work (which I was tempted to work on while there!) In the spirit of honing your craft, here are the top 10 reasons you should participate in something like this locally. And, if one doesn’t exist locally for you, then these are the top 10 reasons you should organize one!

#10 — It beats a Saturday cleaning the garage.

#9 — You get to try a different cafe or restaurant for lunch.

#8 — You can discover new project or career opportunities that might be available.

#7 — Working all day from a new location gives you a different perspective on your own work situation.

#6 — Trying something completely different exercises different parts of your brain.

#5 — Doing something just for the fun of it reminds you why you got into development in the first place.

#4 — It can provide some immediate feedback on those app ideas floating around your brain.

#3 — You can learn something useful you didn’t know from someone else.

#2 — You can share something useful with others that they didn’t know.

#1 — It’s just cool to hang out with people who like to code like you do!


This is post 4 of 10 on my second iDevBlogADay run.

We all need the support of others to do our best work. Find other like-minded developers that will provide encouragement and motivation through local user groups, conferences or meetups. A great collection of indie iOS developers have helped me stay on track through meetups, 360iDev, twitter, and iDevBlogADay.

I regularly attend Cocoa/iPhone developer meetups in Cincinnati, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio. If you are in the central or southwest Ohio area, come join me at either monthly meetup:

If you depend on iOS development for your livelihood, or would like to get to that point — you really need to attend a conference dedicated to helping you get better, and I can think of no better conference for that purpose than 360iDev — you should register today!. Much of what I am able to do professionally is due to the things I learned and the people I met there.

Finally, here is a little more information about me, Doug Sjoquist, and how I came to my current place in life. You should follow me on twitter and subscribe to my blog. Have a great day!