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Hear me out here; Apple's Swift Playgrounds on an iPad. I'm involved in an extracurricular thing in Scotland focused on giving kids an environment they can fig

Hear me out here; Apple's Swift Playgrounds on an iPad. I'm involved in an extracurricular thing in Scotland focused on giving kids an environment they can figure out computers. We've seen a lot of different approaches to the problem of "how can we get kids to code", and Swift Playgrounds is consistently where we see youngfolk making the most progress. It gives you a nice, guided framework to get the very basics of programming, and slowly gives you more and more "rope" to play with, ultimately leading you to move your projects to Xcode on a Mac. Swift may not be your favourite language, and Apple are totally doing this with a view to people becoming iOS/MacOS developers (not necessarily a bad thing), but Swift Playgrounds is definitely best-in-class when it comes to having kids teach themselves how to program. The integration with real-life robots and drones is really impressive, too; the kids absolutely love being able to write real code that makes a real robot do things, it's exceptionally motivational.

athenot 8y ago
My kids don't have tablets but this would be the application that would make me buy an iPad for them. Very close in spirit to the old LOGO, but with the added bonus of laying the foundation using a real language—real as in something used in our industry and with concepts that are easily transferable to other languages.
- alliecat 8y ago
  I am a strong believer in kids having access to technology, but also creating the frameworks in which they can learn how to keep themselves safe. I grew up around a software company and I was exposed to computers and the internet from a very young age; I had my first computer that could be considered "my own" at about five years of age (a little hand-me-down desktop from my father's company) and cut my teeth on that, building little static websites, stuff like that. It's definitely what lead to my lifelong interest in computing (as much as I can't stand this industry sometimes) and a healthy career in IT infrastructure.
- nickthegreek 8y ago
  You can also put an ipad into an kiosk mode where they cannot exit an app without a pin. This will help keep the ipad as a 'power on to code' system and not let them drift into other apps.
b_t_s 8y ago
To support the "you can get pretty far in playgrounds on an iPad" assertion, one of my coworkers built something like half of a language flash card app on his ipad before he transferred it over to his laptop to finish it. I thought he was nuts doing dev on a tablet, but he said it was actually a really nice dev environment and in some areas it totally outclassed xcode. Swift may not be your favorite language but it is an objectively good modern language compared to a lot of what's out there in industry, and its skills are easily transferable to several other good modern languages that are becoming popular.
evo_9 8y ago
So what if your kid has access to a MacBook Air? Would you still start him/her out on an iPad or is it the same experience starting out on a Mac? Or is it too much/overwhelming to get started on Mac/Xcode from the get-go? Great suggestion, thanks for sharing this.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  I think it would come down to if you can get the lesson books in Xcode's Playgrounds (or if they have a separate Playground application) that you can in the iPad app. Those are most of the benefit right there.
  - evo_9 8y ago
    Thanks, very helpful !
    - bunnycorn 8y ago
      Also, one more thing, the Playground functionality on the iPad is great. On Xcode it sucks (buggy, stops refreshing, etc.) Kind of strange, because it's the same infrastructure...
itomato 8y ago
I'd wager that a complete 8-bit system with printer and cassette storage is a better tool for learning.
- inetsee 8y ago
  My first computer had cassette storage. I would not want to inflict that on anyone.
- AzMoo_ 8y ago
  I'd wager that the better tool for learning is the one that gets kids to engage. They're not going to engage on an 8-bit system with printer and cassette storage, but they will with something they can make a pretty game and control a drone.
  - itomato 8y ago
    It depends on what you're after, I guess. I'm betting the boundless possibilities presented by direct I/O control of a servo would do more to equip a kid for life than the range of choices presented in an app. Making your ideas manifest is fascinating, regardless of whether they're tangible. Personally, I want my kid to be on the TX pair, not the RX.

athenot 8y ago

My kids don't have tablets but this would be the application that would make me buy an iPad for them. Very close in spirit to the old LOGO, but with the added bonus of laying the foundation using a real language—real as in something used in our industry and with concepts that are easily transferable to other languages.

alliecat 8y ago
I am a strong believer in kids having access to technology, but also creating the frameworks in which they can learn how to keep themselves safe. I grew up around a software company and I was exposed to computers and the internet from a very young age; I had my first computer that could be considered "my own" at about five years of age (a little hand-me-down desktop from my father's company) and cut my teeth on that, building little static websites, stuff like that. It's definitely what lead to my lifelong interest in computing (as much as I can't stand this industry sometimes) and a healthy career in IT infrastructure.
nickthegreek 8y ago
You can also put an ipad into an kiosk mode where they cannot exit an app without a pin. This will help keep the ipad as a 'power on to code' system and not let them drift into other apps.

b_t_s 8y ago

To support the "you can get pretty far in playgrounds on an iPad" assertion, one of my coworkers built something like half of a language flash card app on his ipad before he transferred it over to his laptop to finish it. I thought he was nuts doing dev on a tablet, but he said it was actually a really nice dev environment and in some areas it totally outclassed xcode. Swift may not be your favorite language but it is an objectively good modern language compared to a lot of what's out there in industry, and its skills are easily transferable to several other good modern languages that are becoming popular.

evo_9 8y ago

So what if your kid has access to a MacBook Air? Would you still start him/her out on an iPad or is it the same experience starting out on a Mac? Or is it too much/overwhelming to get started on Mac/Xcode from the get-go? Great suggestion, thanks for sharing this.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
I think it would come down to if you can get the lesson books in Xcode's Playgrounds (or if they have a separate Playground application) that you can in the iPad app. Those are most of the benefit right there.
- evo_9 8y ago
  Thanks, very helpful !
  - bunnycorn 8y ago
    Also, one more thing, the Playground functionality on the iPad is great. On Xcode it sucks (buggy, stops refreshing, etc.) Kind of strange, because it's the same infrastructure...

itomato 8y ago

I'd wager that a complete 8-bit system with printer and cassette storage is a better tool for learning.

inetsee 8y ago
My first computer had cassette storage. I would not want to inflict that on anyone.
AzMoo_ 8y ago
I'd wager that the better tool for learning is the one that gets kids to engage. They're not going to engage on an 8-bit system with printer and cassette storage, but they will with something they can make a pretty game and control a drone.
- itomato 8y ago
  It depends on what you're after, I guess. I'm betting the boundless possibilities presented by direct I/O control of a servo would do more to equip a kid for life than the range of choices presented in an app. Making your ideas manifest is fascinating, regardless of whether they're tangible. Personally, I want my kid to be on the TX pair, not the RX.