Post: #26

Thanks Gringuito. I will be sure to check all that out.

Post: #27

(06-05-2015 01:09 PM)Gringuito Wrote:  

(06-05-2015 12:42 PM)Atlantic Wrote:  Does anyone know the legality of 'add on' apps. An example would be 'tools for tinder' which does auto swiping.

How does this app get away with: 1) using Tinders name in their name and 2) also be allowed to automate certain features on tinder such as auto swiping through profiles?

Do you know who owns "tools for tinder"? It could be Tinder exposes APIs to allow auto swiping. Or they just hacked into the OS itself a bit. They could also have looked at how the Tinder app talks to the Tinder servers and it responds just like the Tinder app to the server. This would be the first place to look.

As for the use of the copyright, they may be using a fair-use argument. They would claim that "Tools for Tinder" cannot be confused with Tinder itself and that the name is so well known that "tools for tinder" is different. Like writing an app called "Tinder for Windows" when Windows is a Microsoft copyright.

Gringuito's first guess is right, they reverse engineered the wire protocol:
The author details it here: http://www.ydesouza.com/tinder

So happens there was an HN thread on this too, a few people chimed in with their own hacks.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8173197

Also relevant: http://blog.venkatesh.ca/automating-tinder/

Post: #28

(06-05-2015 01:36 PM)RockHard Wrote:  Gringuito's first guess is right, they reverse engineered the wire protocol:
The author details it here: http://www.ydesouza.com/tinder

So happens there was an HN thread on this too, a few people chimed in with their own hacks.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8173197

Also relevant: http://blog.venkatesh.ca/automating-tinder/

Those are great articles. Basically writing the app itself is easy. One small risk you run is that in the future they could modify/encrypt the server communication. But even if they did that they would need to support the older method for quite some time as some people don't update the Tinder client app often. This would give you time to retool if needed.

Post: #29

Thanks guys. Just had a great Skype with RockHard - cool dude. +1 from me for solid advice.

Post: #30

(06-05-2015 02:06 PM)Atlantic Wrote:  Thanks guys. Just had a great Skype with RockHard - cool dude. +1 from me for solid advice.

Likewise, Atlantic had some good points for me too. Valuable convo.

Post: #31

What are peoples thoughts on using teamtreehouse to learn some basic coding?

Post: #32

(06-05-2015 08:20 PM)Atlantic Wrote:  What are peoples thoughts on using teamtreehouse to learn some basic coding?

Specifically what language do you want to code in?

Teamtreehouse, which I've never seen before, seems to have a basic plan of $25/mo, albeit with a free trial. I could buy about 3 ebooks for 3 major programming languages... any C-based language (e.g. C#), java, or PHP for web... for a one time expense of $25.

It could be a great resource, but I prefer to scour the free online tutorials and just dive right in.

Post: #33

Huge +1 on free online tutorials. Quality of some blog articles is just ridiculous.

Think after first couple weeks of "getting started" style stuff, it's mostly just quality time with the Googles. How you get past that initial phase is totally personal learning style.

I find that videos are helpful for setup and tools. If something is odd, it's easy to just step back through the exact steps someone else did, and see which step I messed up. Sometimes books don't capture random details as well.

(06-05-2015 08:31 PM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

(06-05-2015 08:20 PM)Atlantic Wrote:  What are peoples thoughts on using teamtreehouse to learn some basic coding?

Specifically what language do you want to code in?

Teamtreehouse, which I've never seen before, seems to have a basic plan of $25/mo, albeit with a free trial. I could buy about 3 ebooks for 3 major programming languages... any C-based language (e.g. C#), java, or PHP for web... for a one time expense of $25.

It could be a great resource, but I prefer to scour the free online tutorials and just dive right in.

Post: #34

(06-05-2015 08:20 PM)Atlantic Wrote:  What are peoples thoughts on using teamtreehouse to learn some basic coding?

When we talked you mentioned doing iOS stuff - I would NOT recommend using Objective C as your first language. I've been programming for over 20 years, I know about 20 languages well enough to get something done in them and Objective-C is the one language I'd really call "weird".

I'd start with Python, or maybe Ruby. Coursera has an intro to programming specialization and looking at that, that's probably worth 2-3 years of an undergrad CS degree, so if you worked through that you'd know a lot. Udemy has a bunch of low cost options too. I don't see the point in signing up for a monthly commitment unless you really have an appetite for doing coursework.

Post: #35

(06-10-2015 07:59 AM)RockHard Wrote:  

(06-05-2015 08:20 PM)Atlantic Wrote:  What are peoples thoughts on using teamtreehouse to learn some basic coding?

When we talked you mentioned doing iOS stuff - I would NOT recommend using Objective C as your first language. I've been programming for over 20 years, I know about 20 languages well enough to get something done in them and Objective-C is the one language I'd really call "weird".

What are your thoughts on Swift? Apple is apparently trying to move away from objective C towards Swift.

Post: #36

(06-10-2015 08:10 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

(06-10-2015 07:59 AM)RockHard Wrote:  

(06-05-2015 08:20 PM)Atlantic Wrote:  What are peoples thoughts on using teamtreehouse to learn some basic coding?

When we talked you mentioned doing iOS stuff - I would NOT recommend using Objective C as your first language. I've been programming for over 20 years, I know about 20 languages well enough to get something done in them and Objective-C is the one language I'd really call "weird".

What are your thoughts on Swift? Apple is apparently trying to move away from objective C towards Swift.

I'm not an iOS guy, I know a bit but I don't do it full time. Have a friend who does it full time and when I asked him last year, he said Swift is definitely not ready for prime time and there's a lot of backlash from the iOS dev community. His take was it was something Apple created without any input and that it was missing a lot.

Having said that, this was a while back and Swift is the way they want to go so at some point it'll be the way things are done on iOS. I just don't know when that point will be. I'll drop him a line and ask his opinion again.

Post: #37

(06-10-2015 08:57 AM)RockHard Wrote:  I'm not an iOS guy, I know a bit but I don't do it full time. Have a friend who does it full time and when I asked him last year, he said Swift is definitely not ready for prime time and there's a lot of backlash from the iOS dev community. His take was it was something Apple created without any input and that it was missing a lot.

Having said that, this was a while back and Swift is the way they want to go so at some point it'll be the way things are done on iOS. I just don't know when that point will be. I'll drop him a line and ask his opinion again.

Interesting. I have a few ideas for iOS apps, just can't decide which one to code them in.

If history is any indication when it comes to Apple pushing their products and software, then Swift is probably the way of the future. Every time Apple comes up with something new without anyone's input, there is a lot of resistance at first, to which Apple stands their ground. Eventually everyone gives in and Apple gets its way.

Post: #38

As a learning language Swift would be fine. It was a mess when it was released but it's getting better. They are just releasing working error handling now (hopefully). I'm not sure I would use Swift to release a complex application but it's very interactive which would help while learning how to code. I agree that Objective-C isn't very approachable to people just learning how to code.

RockHard, how far back do you go in programming? Paper tape or batch compiles on mainframes?

Edit: If you end up trying out Swift, be sure to download the XCode 7 beta. Otherwise you'll end up having to migrate your Swift 1 code over to Swift 2.

Post: #39

(06-10-2015 09:10 AM)Gringuito Wrote:  Edit: If you end up trying out Swift, be sure to download the XCode 7 beta. Otherwise you'll end up having to migrate your Swift 1 code over to Swift 2.

Ah! Good to know. I have XCode 6 right now. Fortunately I have not gone too deep down that rabbit hole.

Post: #40

(06-10-2015 09:10 AM)Gringuito Wrote:  As a learning language Swift would be fine. It was a mess when it was released but it's getting better. They are just releasing working error handling now (hopefully). I'm not sure I would use Swift to release a complex application but it's very interactive which would help while learning how to code. I agree that Objective-C isn't very approachable to people just learning how to code.

This from my buddy - full time iOS programmer for about 6 years now, has actually written a book on iOS programming. "Swift is ready now. Think of it as .NET 2.0, when things finally started working right". So it looks like I need some retraining too.

(06-10-2015 09:10 AM)Gringuito Wrote:  RockHard, how far back do you go in programming? Paper tape or batch compiles on mainframes?

I graduated college in the early 90s - first job was doing Windows on Borland C++, then next job I was doing 8086 assembly on DOS TSRs and later straight up MSVC on Windows 3.1. The irony was that in college even though we had the option to use Windows/DOS or Mac, I did all the course work on the Unix or VAX systems because I figured that's what "real programmers" used. When I graduated I ended up doing almost all Windows for about 17 years.

So I'm not THAT old. No punch cards or paper tape for me! My dad used to tell stories of the first computer his grad school got, it had a whole 4K of RAM and for input there was just a bank of toggle switches and an "enter" button.