How I taught myself to code | Litha Soyizwapi | TEDxSoweto

I'm a graphic designer by profession but whenever I'm introduced as an app developer this is what most people have in mind the box yep pressure pressure sorry to disappoint you I'm not there yet my story is a story of failure it is a story of gaining confidence and a story of achieving relative success I was born in a small town in the Eastern Cape called beta wave it was an industrial town my mother was a geography teacher growing up there are a lot of maps at home I learned how to read maps at an early age there were topographic maps where the maps solar system charts and diagrams I learnt about different time zones I learned about different hemispheres and more but I was really interested in settlement geography for me geography was a living subject it taught me how human beings were influenced by nature and how they adapted based on their socio-economic needs I learned about different human settlements open settlements and rural settlements I learnt about how they were different how they were similar and how they were organized actually this was my first introduction to graphic communication using symbols and iconography to communicate concepts and items on a map it was also my first introduction to information graphics presenting data into a visual form actually this understanding made the world a really small place to me and a more accessible place it sparked my imagination to visualize faraway places that I've never been to even doors in a small town it also helped me to see similarities between different places actually this influences me every day to create practical things that can be used in the real world I never studied art in high school so when I went to study graphic design I struggled with drawing in my first year there are about 110 10 students in my first year and about 90 of them wanted to study graphic design for their second year the graphic design department only took about 20 students a year in order for me to be a graphic designer I needed to be one of the 20 students and drawing was the recommended subject during the first quarter of my first year I was the only student who failed drawing I received for the 4 percent I went to my drawing lecturer I asked him to give me a crit to critique my work I asked him why was i failing and how could I be better he gave me pointers he told me what I was doing right he told me what I was doing wrong he also gave me an advice he advised me to keep a sketchbook to draw everyday objects I took this advice to heart during the holidays I drew a lot i drew even when i went back to technicon i drew till I finished the sketchbook I finished the sketchbook and upload a new one I read books on drawing techniques and then my drawing improved by the end of the second quarter I jumped from 44 percent to 75 percent this experience taught me three lessons it taught me to land the basics it taught me to learn by doing it also taught me to apply knowledge these three lessons are the same lessons I used when I was teaching myself programming I've always loved programming there's something amazing about creating something that is intelligent something that other people can use I decided to learn this craft despite my fears and discouragements there were many challenges are along the road the first challenge was access to tools the SDK which is the software development kit file size was huge the SDK is just a fancy word for toolbox which is just tools to develop applications there was a company that developed iPhone apps impact on North where I stayed at the time I went in I introduced myself and I requested the copy of the SDK since they had already downloaded it well they are greedy at first but they later gave me a runaround and in short they never gave me the SDK this experience made my desire and determination to want to learn how to do this even stronger I asked a friend of mine Ramos sitting there just homie you downloaded the SDK for me I I downloaded a lot of Apple documentation and I read through it all I read the human interface guidelines to understand how to create interfaces properly I bought myself a book on iPhone programming and Objective C Objective C is a programming language of choice for Apple devices i tinkered around with the apple source code and addicted to my requirements I realized that the graphic design creative process was similar to the programming creative process both they teach you how to think they teach you to ask the question why it is no secret that most of the influential tech entrepreneurs are University dropouts I wanted to do the opposite and be a drop in just for a year or two I wanted to learn the basics properly I downloaded free online courses from MIT Stanford University and Kennedy Mellon University the course contents included machine learning iPhone programming and introduction to computer science with this newfound knowledge I wanted to create a product that would be used in the real world I wanted to create something that other people would use I was really obsessed I wanted to create something for myself something that I would use every day I decided to create a how to an application how train is the rapid rail system that connects Johannesburg Pretoria and gautama International Airport in Kempton Park I'm an everyday user of the heart train service I researched similar applications around the world and I found out that the user interface was similar I wanted to create something unique something that would enhance the user experience something that would simplify the user interface I decided to create a drop a drag and drop functionality for the application whereby a user will just drag where they're from and then drop to where they're going and then with the Train next train time will be displayed I also wanted the application to work well offline as we all know Peters still expensive in this country this is the actual application icon it was launched in March this year and this is the final product the app was well-received by the surf Canadia and in the international media the financial mail gave it four and a half stars out of five within two weeks of its launch it was mentioned in Stockholm Sweden at a web and mobile conference the app is charted at number two in the surfing App Store in the iPad travel category for both top paid and top grossing I believe that people should exercise the idealism to make their ideas happen of course execution is always the hardest part when we learn something new we've got a tendency to jump to the cool part a tendency to ignore the process but I think understanding the process means means that you can create products that can have a lasting value I think learning the basics means that you can break things apart and put them back together again I think that learning by doing means that you can discover new ways of doing things you can use the basics with your imagination to create new products and I think applying knowledge means that you can build a product with insights the internet access has made the world a really really small place and I think great ideas can come from anywhere around the globe whether you are from a small town or a big city where the here from a rural or an urban settlement I would like to close with this Picasso code learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist thank you very much you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 720,914

Rating: 4.899632 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, South Africa, Design, Achievement, Africa, Africans, Big Data, Coding, Creativity, Culture, Data, Digital, Education, Entrepreneurship, Higher education, Innovation, Interface design, Invention, Product design, Smartphone, Travel, Visualization

Id: nmZR_JsLCfg

Length: 12min 45sec (765 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 20 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/The_Wrecktangle]

This was a good one, thank you for sharing.

[u/tangerto]

That was great