Communications of the ACM
Apple's New App Will Teach the Next Generation How to Code
Apple's new Swift Playgrounds iPad app is designed to teach children and other novices how to code on their mobile devices.
Credit: Apple
Apple's new Swift Playgrounds iPad application is designed to teach children and novices how to code, using the Swift programming language with their mobile devices.
"Swift is not just a thing that pro developers can use," says Apple's Wiley Hodges. "It could be someone's first programming language."
Swift Playgrounds is scheduled to become available in the App Store this fall, and it teaches users basic programming concepts such as commands, functions, loops, algorithms, variables, and types using visual metaphors as well as actual code. The visual metaphors are playgrounds through which users manipulate the movements and actions of a character named "Byte," using commands.
The lessons the app brings to the iPad are particularly geared toward children who are growing up with touchscreens instead of keyboards as their standard computing interface.
Users also can construct their own playground environments, where they can see the results of any of their own code.
From Wired
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