Every Once in a While...

Since the original release of Beginning iPhone Development about a year ago (has it really only been a year??), there have been several little thing that have happened as a result of the book that have meant a lot to me. Things like seeing the picture of that nine year old kid with an app on the App Store holding up a copy of our book. Things like getting to meet Steve Wozniak. Things like getting tweets from readers thanking us for the book. All sorts of little things that just wouldn't have happened had it not been for the book.

I had another one the other day while I was traveling, and I didn't even really realize it had happened until I got home. On Sunday, I received a tweet that said

FYI: I decided to develop for the iPhone after reading your book, and mainly learned how from it. Thank you! Approved 1st try

Now, that's pretty neat no matter who the author is. Dave and I both love to hear about people who have started programming, or gotten back into programming using our book. It's a huge ego boost for us. It makes us feel good. For me, it makes me feel like I'm paying forward, in a small part, all the help that I've received over the years.

It wasn't until today that I realized that I knew who the author of that tweet is. Dan Bricklin created VisiCalc, the world's first spreadsheet computer program. It was the program that really put the Apple ][ on the map and proved to many people that a "personal" computer could do serious work.

Dan's also a book author, having published Bricklin on Technology this year, and the reviews of it are phenomenal.

If you're curious, check out Dan's first iPhone App: Note Taker.

For those of you who are too young to remember VisiCalc or to have used an Apple ][ outside of a computer museum, this may seems like a minor thing. But for me... well, if I kept a scrapbook, this tweet would go in it, and I would be picking out some really cool stickers to go around it. Glittery stars, dinosaurs. Maybe even dinosaurs with laser guns. And some spaceships. Definitely a couple of spaceships.