Posted on 06/16/2016 6:05:42 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
During the keynote of the recent WWDC, Tim Cook argued that every child should be taught a programming language in school. Further, he argued that Apple's Swift programming language is the best choice for the programming language children should learn. He pointed out that SWIFTIn furtherance of the objective of teaching children SWIFT, Apple announced and demonstrated “Swift Playground” for the iPad. Swift Playground will allow the learner to use SWIFT statements to command turns and motion by a fuzzy critter, or to cause a bunch of icons on the display to respond to movement of the user manipulating the iPad. IOW, under “Swift Playground,” the learner has access to the gyro and the accelerometer in the iPad.
- is open source,
- is used and useful for Apple developers,
- is very easy to learn, and creates very fast code
Swift is a radically more powerful language than LOGO, and it runs on a radically more powerful processor. And its gyro and accelerometer inputs add an entirely different dimension. Swift is far more than strictly educational.
Swift Playground will be available this fall in the App Store, free. I myself might avail myself of it, and homeschoolers who want their charges to learn a programming language probably could do a lot worse, a lot more expensively (assuming they already have a suitable iPad). To go by the demo, it looks like kids might find it fun.
All kids should be taught actual computer programming, not sexting, if America is to realistically avoid importing foreigners and replace dead end jobs that are happening within a decade.
In driver's ed class, they teach how to drive a car, not how to build a car.
He pointed out that SWIFT:
Only works on Apple computers!
“In driver’s ed class, they teach how to drive a car, not how to build a car.”
Because the purpose of that class is to have road-safe teens, not great cars for teens.
If teens are taught how to actually build cars, perhaps they would be working in the workshops and assembling cars, not flipping burgers and serving junk food.
Most already use Apple mac/iphones.
Programming is a great way to teach humility.
Sometimes, however, there is a substantial propagation delay.
A genuinely ridiculous idea. To teach kids a programming language when they can’t even manage the basic rules of algebra — on a single platform, essentially proprietary language no less — is exactly the kind of horseradish education is to love to use to distract parents and taxpayers from their spectacular failures.
“Education is” should read: educationists in the previous post. Autocorrect is my enema.
I teach MIT Scratch and Scratch Jr. No need for Swift.
So true. Adults are always saying oh the kids are so good with these things uh no - they are not, they just don't care about pushing any button and they don't have anything to lose.
I program almost everyday to swift - I say why another crappy company based language. I heard a swift developer going on and on about enums - how they were really a type - enums really.
Anybody with a clue isn't going to use this unless they are developing iOS apps.
Its unfortunate that it has come out at the same time a RUST as that actually has some new ideas and appears to have borrowed from Haskell intellegently.
Once again a dumb crappy language will win - screw apple.
By the way we probably should use Haskell - the world would be safer. Until then C++ and clojure - but all the languages suck its a question of which one sucks least.
Hey, good for Tim. But if they can’t even teach reading, writing and arithmetic, how the hell are they gonna teach computer programming?
As of now that may be the practical reality; in principle it is not true because Apple made Swift open source a while back. And it is not as if working as well as advertised (if indeed it does; I’m not qualified at all to say since I have not learned Swift programming, and am not a developer) for Apple development alone is contemptible. At WWDC AAPL bragged on how many billions (with a b) of dollars have been paid to developers via the App Store.It stands to reason that if Swift is living up to its billing for Apple development, and is open source, someone will port it to Linux. If indeed they have not already done so; I am not knowledgeable on that score.
Naturally, AAPL’s position would be that only AAPL itself offers the best computing platforms. It is not obvious that Apple should be expected to do a lot more to universalize Swift than making it open source. Tho, admittedly, Microsoft itself has been known to support Linux . . .
Certainly my very limited experience would not refute that notion . . .
It runs on Linux already. But all the frameworks and libraries are for Apple.
My point is that Apple executives will always urge you to use products that put you in the Apple ecosystem and keep you there. They don’t want any competition.
Then, why can I download it for Linux? Swift Downloads
And install it on Linux? Installing Swift
Izzat right? I never heard of a business that didn’t want competition before . . .</sarcasm>
Exactly!! Throw in a little python and it’s great!!
When I bought my first computer, an Apple //c, I had it at my in-laws’ house, powered up and on the floor. My sis-in-law came to me all worried, and told me that the kids were playing with the computer. I walked over, swept my fingers across the keyboard, and said, “Are they doing THIS?” I think Aunt Sandy learned a lot from that :-)we probably should use Haskell - the world would be safer.So my kids, at least, grew up unafraid of hitting a key on a computer. One took Comp Sci in college . . .
I took occasion of your comment to find out what Haskell is. Liked it, site I found was pretty good.
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