One year of "Back to Software Development"
1st Anniversary
I started writing on Substack in September 2023 and Back to Software Development was the first newsletter I launched. My initial idea was to reinvigorate blog posts I had previously started on Blogger, since my blog slowly faded into obscurity, given that it was difficult to get your posts discovered, even if you used Google’s own blogging environment. Another issue with Blogger was that it was quite difficult to customize, although it gave you lots of opportunities to do it, but you had to do use some HTML and third-party components.
My software development adventure started in the first week I started university, where I attended a programming course common to all engineering students and started learning Fortran. It was the year 1978 and I am proud to say that I’ve been involved in software development in various roles since that time, although I retired from professional work in July 2021. My latest effort is in developing software for the iOS and MacOS environments, using the Swift language and the SwiftUI framework. In the first few posts of the newsletter, I narrated some of my software development experience over the 45 years since I first set my eyes on symbols for a programming language. This is now captured under the section Software Development History.
I also wrote some separate articles about the Swift language, SwiftUI, SwiftData and similar frameworks, evaluated and explained updates Apple introduced to their programming ecosystem and provided some useful tips and tricks. This is now captured under the section Swift Development.
Since I got interested in Generative AI around the same time I started the newsletter, I started a separate thread on AI, first with a series of articles on current generative AI models, then with regular monthly updates. This is now captured under the section Today’s Software.
I have published a total of 48 articles up to now. This is almost one article per week on the average. I know that it is difficult for a newsletter of this sort to keep this tempo, but I’ll do my best to publish at least two articles per month.
The following picture shows all of my 5 newsletters on Substack.
I have around 20 subscribers, but slightly more than 100 followers, so there is room to grow the newsletter.
I hope you stay interested and this newsletter continues to provide useful information in Generative AI and Software Development.