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Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds

arstechnica.com

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Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds

#11

Post by izacus »

Razengan wrote: post #7
madcow2011 wrote: post #4

I'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.

There's nothing usable you can write in Swift that would run on other platforms. Lack of cross platform standard library makes portability only a lip services, "opensource" or not.

Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds

#12

Post by ariabuckles »

madcow2011 wrote: post #4

I'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?)

Khan Academy's programming environment might have some useful content: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming

It's a live programming environment with instruction to go along with it.

(Disclaimer: Used to work there; didn't work on CS)

Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds

#13

Post by spraak »

I am not (yet) familiar with this app, but I do like to suggest to any new (young or old) programmers to give Racket along with the book 'Realm of Racket' a try. It's a simple enough programming language to get a good foundation with important principles, but also can take you nearly as far as you want.

Edit: For those who downvoted my comment here, I'd really be curious to know why.

Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds

#14

Post by spraak »

madcow2011 wrote: post #4

I'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?)

As I wrote in my post above, I'd suggest Racket with the book 'Realm of Racket'.

Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds

#15

Post by donut2d »

izacus wrote: post #11
Razengan wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's nothing usable you can write in Swift that would run on other platforms. Lack of cross platform standard library makes portability only a lip services, "opensource" or not.

Actually, Foundation is being ported to Linux and there are already quite a few third-party libraries out there. I am successfully writing cross-platform server-side applications in Swift.

https://github.com/open-swift https://github.com/VeniceX https://github.com/Zewo

Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds

#16

Post by emmiechang »

We play tested this with 10 year olds at the San Francisco Public Library recently and the kids LOVED it -- keep in mind, these were not middle or upper middle class privileged kids, but lower income at risk ones.

The challenge is that after about 45 min of "play" time, they want to 'build' something and create--and Playgrounds doesn't provide the environment to do that. Then, they get bored and feel encumbered.

After working with over 1000 kids in our beta phase, we've tested almost every product on the market.

I personally like Scratch + Learntomod.com which uses Minecraft to teach Javascript and CodeCombat.com (My YC batchmates).

We're soon launching an online course (for a nominal fee) that has progression, milestones, and support for parents who want their kids to 'complete' a project. Message me or check out our beta site if you're interested to in being a beta tester for our online product--would love to hear from you.

Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds

#17

Post by redtuesday »

madcow2011 wrote: post #4

I'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?)

I really like nand2tetris [1] in which one builds a computer from NAND gates upwards. You build the ALU etc., an assembler, compiler, a OS and VM on which you can run your own version of tetris, snake, whatever. It doesn't teach programming directly, but could be used to teach programming when the first parts are reached that require programming (I believe it was Chapter 6 - Assembler).

The hardware part of the course is also available on coursera now. [2] Previous discussion on hn [3].

[1] http://www.nand2tetris.org/

[2] https://www.coursera.org/learn/build-a-computer

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5888705

Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds

#18

Post by Razengan »

izacus wrote: post #11
Razengan wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's nothing usable you can write in Swift that would run on other platforms. Lack of cross platform standard library makes portability only a lip services, "opensource" or not.

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/415/

This is just one example.

Re: Learning to code as a 30-year-old kid with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds

#19

Post by Watabou »

spraak wrote: post #13

I am not (yet) familiar with this app, but I do like to suggest to any new (young or old) programmers to give Racket along with the book 'Realm of Racket' a try. It's a simple enough programming language to get a good foundation with important principles, but also can take you nearly as far as you want. Edit: For those who downvoted my comment here, I'd really be curious to know why.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think starting out with parenthesis based programming language is the best starting point for new programmers. You'll probably just scare them. I'm saying this with my huge love for Scheme. Of course, if you're already programming and want to learn/try something different, Haskell or Racket, or any other functional language is a great option.

What makes Swift Playground so compelling is that it seems to be specifically tailored towards new programmers, with the way it teaches -- it provides basic information about Swift, and does not overload information at the reader at once. And even existing programmers can make use of it because it's just a Swift playground (part of Xcode) underneath.

I think Swift Playground is genuinely fun as you can manipulate an object on an iPad. It's pretty much like playing a game in that sense. That's something you just can't get out of reading a book. It makes it that much more approachable.

If you show kids or even new programmers Swift Playgrounds along with something like Learn You a Haskell or Realm of Racket, or even tell them about Scratch, which do you think they would gravitate towards more?

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