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Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#81

Post by jshevek »

Matt3o12_ wrote: post #75
jshevek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without a GUI, mainstream computing probably wouldn't even exist let alone mainstream programming. As a child growing up, learning to function in society by speaking, reading, writing, and generally understanding English was a much harder task for me than learning to program in BASIC. BASIC is simple, predictable, logical and downright easy compared to English. We take learning to read and write for granted, but it…

> Its easy to imagine a version of our world in which children learn to interact with computers without GUIs, if CLIs were the norm. Children would learn them faster than adults. Do you want those children to hate CLIs because they are boring and they have to learn it just like all other boring stuff such learning how to read and write? If we offer children a way to enjoy what they are doing (i.e. make it fun to use/…

I'm responding to the claim that GUIs were probably necessary for coding to become commonplace. They were absolutely not necessary, though they certainly accelerated it.

In this context, most of your post seems unrelated to mine.

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#82

Post by Chathamization »

plg wrote: post #32

I took my kid to one of these last year. It was fairly useless. They drag around little action-icons into a list to make an animated character move around and do stuff. My 11-year-old was bored stiff. Edit: PS the Apple Store employee who ran this thing (he was a very nice guy) admitted he had zero coding experience himself

That's how the Harvard CS50 course starts (using Scratch).

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#83

Post by jldugger »

dublinben wrote: post #3

I don't think it's necessarily fair to call this program "philanthropic." It's teaching kids how to use proprietary and commercial software, like iMovie, iBooks, and Tynker, when completely free alternatives exist like Blender and Scratch. This is essentially building a new generation of future Apple customers.

This is as philanthropic the Apple II educational program under Job's Apple.

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#85

Post by xyience »

jshevek wrote: post #45
plg wrote: post #32

I took my kid to one of these last year. It was fairly useless. They drag around little action-icons into a list to make an animated character move around and do stuff. My 11-year-old was bored stiff. Edit: PS the Apple Store employee who ran this thing (he was a very nice guy) admitted he had zero coding experience himself

Yes, given the level of competence of the staff at Apple stores, it seems unlikely there could be a worthwhile coding camp at that venue. Apple would need to bring in some much higher caliber people.

It'd be nice if they made an area available for random mall-goers who are also software engineers to come voluntarily hang out and instruct / help out random kids or teens that stop by, with potential for networking or further tutoring services for those really interested or who want to do something more interesting. Unfortunately I bet if a lot of us just camped out unofficially for a couple hours we'd be branded as child predators or something, and escorted out by mall security in any case...

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#86

Post by [deleted] »

Matt3o12_ wrote: post #75
jshevek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without a GUI, mainstream computing probably wouldn't even exist let alone mainstream programming. As a child growing up, learning to function in society by speaking, reading, writing, and generally understanding English was a much harder task for me than learning to program in BASIC. BASIC is simple, predictable, logical and downright easy compared to English. We take learning to read and write for granted, but it…

> Its easy to imagine a version of our world in which children learn to interact with computers without GUIs, if CLIs were the norm. Children would learn them faster than adults. Do you want those children to hate CLIs because they are boring and they have to learn it just like all other boring stuff such learning how to read and write? If we offer children a way to enjoy what they are doing (i.e. make it fun to use/…

[deleted]

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#87

Post by sxg »

jshevek wrote: post #81
Matt3o12_ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its easy to imagine a version of our world in which children learn to interact with computers without GUIs, if CLIs were the norm. Children would learn them faster than adults. Do you want those children to hate CLIs because they are boring and they have to learn it just like all other boring stuff such learning how to read and write? If we offer children a way to enjoy what they are doing (i.e. make it fun to use/…

I'm responding to the claim that GUIs were probably necessary for coding to become commonplace. They were absolutely not necessary, though they certainly accelerated it. In this context, most of your post seems unrelated to mine.

My argument is that without GUIs, computers would have either never become common or would gain adoption at a substantially slower pace than they have with the general public. With no/slowed adoption of computers, it's not possible for programming to become more common than it is today.

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#88

Post by foobarrio »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #17
danso wrote: post #14

Ironically, I sometimes fear Apple would be the harbinger of programming's death, what with how much can be done via consumer-friendly app and touch-screens. It didn't help hearing about OSX becoming macOS, which would be well in line with a dystopian future in which the only people who need to know about plaintext and file systems are the full-time Apple programmers. But this sounds like a great initiative...and als…

I think the invention of the GUI killed the dream of mainstream programming. If computers had to be interacted with in ways that resembled programming - like a UNIX prompt - then people would be more used to the way computers actually work, with functions and parameters instead of icons and settings menus. I really hope that raspberry PI gets more mainstream appeal as time goes on. I fear the separation between coder…

GUIs allow things to be done by people who otherwise would not be interacting with a computer. They are huge enablers! This is true of the arts with computer graphics, music software. Granted really advanced users of computer graphics packages often end up doing some kind of programming via Python scripting or even Action Script back in the days of Flash. However there are plenty of people that are pure artists and just digitally paint of sculpt.

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#89

Post by jaegerpicker »

dublinben wrote: post #3

I don't think it's necessarily fair to call this program "philanthropic." It's teaching kids how to use proprietary and commercial software, like iMovie, iBooks, and Tynker, when completely free alternatives exist like Blender and Scratch. This is essentially building a new generation of future Apple customers.

Tynker and Sphero aren't owned by Apple though? and Using blender for what iMovie does is nuts! Why on earth would you do that? Blender is a really complex piece of software and not at all the same as iMovie. Maybe you could say that about Swift playgrounds on iPad but even swift is open source so I don't know what you are talking about?
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