Development!

Over these last few weeks, we've continued to hone our plan, identifying markets we want to appeal to the features our app will need to do so (with some intermediate debate over what to name the company. I'm partial to "Klunch" but the rest of the team isn't on board. "Pack my Lunch" is our working title)

Anyways,  my main priority is getting a prototype of the app functioning. It's been awhile since I've programmed in Objective-C (the language used to create iOS apps) and there's a bit of a learning curve to come back to. Using square brackets to call functions? (Actually, 'send messages' is the proper term in this language) Delegation instead of subclassing? Not to mention, programming in an IDE like Xcode is a little strange since I've doing all my recent work (C, C++, Python) in Vim, straight on the command line. While the tools an IDE offer are nice, I'm missing my stance-based text editor, and there's a certain lack of elegance to such a clustered interface. Oh well.

Technical talk aside, progress is coming along nicely. I'm warming up to Objective-C again and have a strong idea of how I'm going to map out this app. Our MVP (that is, minimum viable Product) version will be able to generate a list of five lunches, from which the user will be able to view the recipe/ingredients needed for a specific lunch, and a 'grocery list' detailing everything they'll need to the whole week's lunches. It's not a particularly complicated project, and I'm sure I'll be able to have a functioning product by the mid-point of November. From there, it's just more convenience features (like being able to pick a specific lunch for one day, or browse through a list of lunches instead of having them picked randomly), some nice new design elements (we'll have to pay a graphic designer to make UI elements for us) and we'll be set to launch!