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I think it makes for a cute demo but misses the mark - what's desperately needed are better developer tools - not another 'how to become a programmer in 30 days

I think it makes for a cute demo but misses the mark - what's desperately needed are better developer tools - not another 'how to become a programmer in 30 days'. There's enough beginner material - the stumbling block is the reality programmers are living in. Cute demos aren't changing that.

Jtsummers 10y ago
I'm not sure there are enough beginner materials. I've lamented in the past (here even, maybe) that the first computing devices many people get are primarily designed around consumption. Some types of content creation (particularly visual and audio, more limited textual), are very well enabled by these tablet interfaces, but that's not been the primary focus. But programming them has long been difficult and required an external device. Many of my peers' young children are first given an iPad or similar device, not access to a Tandy 1000, Apple II, Commodore or similar computer that had a BASIC interpreter baked in. To an extent the fault (on iOS) is squarely on Apple's shoulders, as for a long time they explicitly made interpreters and such verboten on iOS. This is a nice turnaround on their part, and a potentially good tool to get programming into the hands of kids.
- tetraodonpuffer 10y ago
  I thought Apple had allowed interpreters etc. for some time, pythonista looks quite nice for example (it even has numpy and somebody ported some sort of pip to it so you can even install modules) As a first introduction to programming python might be a bit too complicated, but there do seem to be some BASIC interpreter on the app store it seems
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    They have, but I don't know when it happened. Looks like longer back than I recall. So less a turnaround than I was thinking it was.
  - alexashka 10y ago
    How is it that we can teach chemistry and physics - but when it comes to 'when this, do that', we throw our hands in the air and claim it is too difficult? I'm pretty sure calculus is more difficult than intro to python :)
- cableshaft 10y ago
  Give kids the tools to program their own games and they will be plenty motivated to learn the skills. That's how I got started, was having a TI calculator with a full TI-BASIC programming language in it. I was sitting in my classes and programming games while listening to the teacher at the same time. I wish there was something equivalent in modern devices, but devices in general are too sandboxed, and pretty much all require programming from the computer, which interferes with kids being able to code from wherever they're at, because they have to go and do what their parents/teachers/etc tell them to do. Back then I could access the graphing calculator, from code, and draw my own graphics directly to it, or create native menus (great for choose your own adventure games), check key input realtime, all sorts of fun things. I don't know an existing mobile device that allows native access to things from code on the device, and that sucks.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > I wish there was something equivalent in modern devices, but devices in general are too sandboxed, and pretty much all require programming from the computer, which interferes with kids being able to code from wherever they're at, because they have to go and do what their parents/teachers/etc tell them to do. On Android (without rooting or any other "magic") there are plenty of fairly complete programming environments with comprehensive access to device features (including at least one dialect of BASIC with fairly comprehensive access to sensors, etc.), and there are even dev environments where you can build Android apps on device. iOS may be "too sandboxed" to allow as much freedom (back when I was using iOS, I remember some similar things, but they were much more restricted than what was on Android at the time, don't know how that has changed since), but if so that's an iOS thing, not a "modern devices" thing.
    - cableshaft 10y ago
      That's cool. Which apps? I do have an Android phone myself. I only use iOS for tablets nowadays. And that being said, really there should (also) be something built into every device, so everyone has it and can be curious what it is and can look it up and tinker with it. Having to download apps requires them to be actively looking for it, and every IDE is competing with each other and fracturing the community and support behind it. (They should exist as alternatives, I just want something built in also).

Jtsummers 10y ago

I'm not sure there are enough beginner materials. I've lamented in the past (here even, maybe) that the first computing devices many people get are primarily designed around consumption. Some types of content creation (particularly visual and audio, more limited textual), are very well enabled by these tablet interfaces, but that's not been the primary focus. But programming them has long been difficult and required an external device. Many of my peers' young children are first given an iPad or similar device, not access to a Tandy 1000, Apple II, Commodore or similar computer that had a BASIC interpreter baked in. To an extent the fault (on iOS) is squarely on Apple's shoulders, as for a long time they explicitly made interpreters and such verboten on iOS. This is a nice turnaround on their part, and a potentially good tool to get programming into the hands of kids.

tetraodonpuffer 10y ago
I thought Apple had allowed interpreters etc. for some time, pythonista looks quite nice for example (it even has numpy and somebody ported some sort of pip to it so you can even install modules) As a first introduction to programming python might be a bit too complicated, but there do seem to be some BASIC interpreter on the app store it seems
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  They have, but I don't know when it happened. Looks like longer back than I recall. So less a turnaround than I was thinking it was.
- alexashka 10y ago
  How is it that we can teach chemistry and physics - but when it comes to 'when this, do that', we throw our hands in the air and claim it is too difficult? I'm pretty sure calculus is more difficult than intro to python :)
cableshaft 10y ago
Give kids the tools to program their own games and they will be plenty motivated to learn the skills. That's how I got started, was having a TI calculator with a full TI-BASIC programming language in it. I was sitting in my classes and programming games while listening to the teacher at the same time. I wish there was something equivalent in modern devices, but devices in general are too sandboxed, and pretty much all require programming from the computer, which interferes with kids being able to code from wherever they're at, because they have to go and do what their parents/teachers/etc tell them to do. Back then I could access the graphing calculator, from code, and draw my own graphics directly to it, or create native menus (great for choose your own adventure games), check key input realtime, all sorts of fun things. I don't know an existing mobile device that allows native access to things from code on the device, and that sucks.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I wish there was something equivalent in modern devices, but devices in general are too sandboxed, and pretty much all require programming from the computer, which interferes with kids being able to code from wherever they're at, because they have to go and do what their parents/teachers/etc tell them to do. On Android (without rooting or any other "magic") there are plenty of fairly complete programming environments with comprehensive access to device features (including at least one dialect of BASIC with fairly comprehensive access to sensors, etc.), and there are even dev environments where you can build Android apps on device. iOS may be "too sandboxed" to allow as much freedom (back when I was using iOS, I remember some similar things, but they were much more restricted than what was on Android at the time, don't know how that has changed since), but if so that's an iOS thing, not a "modern devices" thing.
  - cableshaft 10y ago
    That's cool. Which apps? I do have an Android phone myself. I only use iOS for tablets nowadays. And that being said, really there should (also) be something built into every device, so everyone has it and can be curious what it is and can look it up and tinker with it. Having to download apps requires them to be actively looking for it, and every IDE is competing with each other and fracturing the community and support behind it. (They should exist as alternatives, I just want something built in also).