Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds
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Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds
#2I can't wait to teach my eight-year-old how to code using Swift Playgrounds...
Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds
#3I've been using it since the day the beta came out. I've been an Apple fan for a long time but I think this might be the best thing they've ever done.
It makes programming approachable to nearly anyone on a device that's approachable to anyone that can afford it.
I heard someone on one of the TWiT podcasts talking last week about teaching their 6 and 8 year old to program using it and that they were talking about creating real-life functions to do household tasks IIRC.
Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds
#4I've been looking for something similar to this for my 12-year old son. Are there any other resources you guys can recommend to help teach coding? (that aren't Apple-product dependent?)
Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds
#5I've been looking for something similar to this for my 12-year old son. Are there any other resources you guys can recommend to help teach coding? (that aren't Apple-product dependent?)
You've been looking for something similar, discovered that this "something similar" exists, yet the Apple logo puts you off? A used iPad that can run this is probably a couple hundred dollars.
Now, perhaps I've misinterpreted your question, and you'd just like a list of alternatives to keep your options open. I've not looked really hard, not having any kids and all, but there seems to be a dearth of options that meet the (IMO) high bar Playgrounds has set. Me, I wonder if the 2nd-best alternative isn't an old machine with QBasic on it. I just don't see anything else out there that doesn't start with "Step 1: Let's learn about dependency trees!"
Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds
#6I've been looking for something similar to this for my 12-year old son. Are there any other resources you guys can recommend to help teach coding? (that aren't Apple-product dependent?)
A few suggestions, in no particular order:
- Pico-8 (Lua)
- Love2d (Lua)
- Scratch (visual coding)
Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds
#7I've been looking for something similar to this for my 12-year old son. Are there any other resources you guys can recommend to help teach coding? (that aren't Apple-product dependent?)
Swift is open-source now, so it's not really Apple-dependent. Using the Swift Playgrounds doesn't mean your kid will be locked into the Apple ecosystem.
Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds
#8I've been looking for something similar to this for my 12-year old son. Are there any other resources you guys can recommend to help teach coding? (that aren't Apple-product dependent?)
Scratch is really great. It's free, and kids can publish their work online. Being able to see what other people are doing, tinker with their work, and show off your own projects was a big draw for my son.
It's a visual programming environment, so moving into a second more traditional (text-based) programming language is a non-trivial step, but scratch gets you thinking in terms of algorithms, teaches about what variables are and why they matter, loops and conditionals, etc.
Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds
#9I've been looking for something similar to this for my 12-year old son. Are there any other resources you guys can recommend to help teach coding? (that aren't Apple-product dependent?)
You've been looking for something similar, discovered that this "something similar" exists, yet the Apple logo puts you off? A used iPad that can run this is probably a couple hundred dollars. Now, perhaps I've misinterpreted your question, and you'd just like a list of alternatives to keep your options open. I've not looked really hard, not having any kids and all, but there seems to be a dearth of options that meet…
HyperCard is great for this, but it's system requirements are likely a little too ancient.
Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds
#10I've been looking for something similar to this for my 12-year old son. Are there any other resources you guys can recommend to help teach coding? (that aren't Apple-product dependent?)
The Community Edition of Livecode is interesting. It's the closest thing out there to a modern Hypercard successor.