At 1am on June 4^th, the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2019 (WWDC19) was held in San Jose, California. Yu Jiaxing, a first-year student from our college, who is winner of this year’s WWDC student scholarship, was invited to participate in the conference.

Photo: Yu Jiaxing(left) and Ge Yue(right),Vice President of Apple 

Interview with Yu Jiaxing 

Programming from C to iOS

“I first heard the word 'programming' when transitioning from middle school to high school. At that time, a friend of my told me that he wanted to become a programmer. I was confused and asked what 'programming' means.” Yu Jiaxing said that the first programming book that he came into contact with was C Primer Plus, a book about the C language. He spent an entire summer studying C. Following Mr. Weng Kai’s MOOC, I wrote down my first line of code - ‘Hello, World!’ and compiled it successfully.” Yu Jiaxing, who complied code for the first time, realized the hardships of programming and also experienced the joy of problem solving. I like the black running box that pops out after the completion. This kind of accomplishment is very exciting. Yu Jiaxing said happily.

He defined his first function and realized primality test. He understood string input/output and learned the convenience and potential danger of using pointers. In the process, Yu Jiaxing was hooked by the charm of programming and deeply fell in love with it. At that time, I missed the MOOC’s mid-term exam and only got a passing grade. Speaking of this, he still showed a trace of regret.

During the three years in high school, Yu Jiaxing’s love for programming was put aside because of the heavy school work. After the college entrance examination, I was very happy because I had time to learn programming again, Yu Jiaxing said. In that summer, I got into iOS programming, a language that is completely different from C. Learning through the Internet, Yu Jiaxing developed a certain grasp of UI controls and the basic iOS concepts. Since then, he has been trying to write small programs such as calculators and to-do lists.

New Year wish was to publish app

After getting excellent scores on the college entrance examination, Yu Jiaxing was admitted to Zhejiang University and became a computer science freshman. He was very observant, and soon realized that because of the vast size of the campus, it was very easy for students to forget where their bicycles were parked. Therefore, Yu Jiaxing decided to write an app that can record and provide the location of bicycles very conveniently and quickly. During the winter vacation of 2019, he started developing the application. At the time of Chinese New Year, my New Year wish was to publish my own application in 2019. Yu Jiaxing said, I didn't expect the dream to come true just a few days before the end of the winter vacation. The result was very favorable. The app developed by Yu Jiaxing passed Apple’s software review and got published in the App Store.

It only took three months from decision to success

People with a programming mind are not intimidated by seemingly arduous difficulties. They know and believe that problems can be solved.

In March 2019, Yu Jiaxing inadvertently heard his seniors talk about the WWDC scholarship. I just want to try it. The boy smiled and told us I was not very familiar with WWDC, although I have been watching their live stream for several years. Yu Jiaxing is the type of person who puts his ideas to practice. When he came up with this idea, he acted upon it. “The first part was learning.” Yu Jiaxing said, “I reviewed the release of some innovative technologies on the WWDC.” In the process of learning, Yu Jiaxing’s creativity began to take shape in his mind. He carefully considered and analyzed every aspect from Core ML (machine learning), to AR (augmented reality), to the iPad Pro deep sensor camera to obtain facial data. He has always been good at thinking, and also has a love for programming. After learning, analyzing, selecting, and deciding, it only took him a week to turn his ideas into reality. I was relieved when I finally clicked the submit button. I slept very well that night.” Yu Jiaxing said happily.