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Apple Wants To Turn Community College Students Into App Developers (axios.com)

Posted by msmash on from the app-ecosystem dept.

Ina Fried, writing for Axios: Apple already offers a variety of tools to help school kids learn the basics of coding. Now, it aims to give older students what they need to become full-fledged app developers. On Wednesday the company is releasing, for free, the curriculum for a year-long course on how to write apps for the iPhone. The effort, though available to all, is aimed at community college students and Apple is working with six districts around the country, with the first classes to start this summer and fall. The courseware teaches students how to create apps using Apple's Swift programming language.

67 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Program "Winky" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You may win commercial programmer scholarships or cash prizes!

  2. The community college scene... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    Java Coders (10 years ago) -> Python Coders (now) -> Swift Coders (future)

    1. Re:The community college scene... by techno_dan · · Score: 1

      Based on your 3, Java is multi platform, Python is multi platform, swift in this course is targeted to iPhones. Bad mistake. Maybe big market in U.S., but much much smaller worldwide. Any course worth its weight should be based on top 5 or so most popular languages worldwide to give these new developers a competitive portfolio.

    2. Re:The community college scene... by fred6666 · · Score: 1

      Which major Linux, Windows, Android or BSD application is written is Swift? I can't think of a single one.

      Are you going to rewrite Firefox, KDE or the Linux kernel in Swift? Of course not. It's as simple as that. If you want to develop on Windows, BSD or Linux, you don't choose Swift as a programming language.

    3. Re:The community college scene... by tsqr · · Score: 1

      there is a huge gloat of people who will never make it.

      The good news? There are far fewer people who can't distinguish between 'gloat' and 'glut'.

    4. Re:The community college scene... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That would be a terrible mistake

      My community college refused to teach C/C++ because the Microsoft site license for Visual Studios expired. The dean offered to teach C/C++ on Linux and the textbook supported CLI compiling. But, no, it wouldn't be. Surveys of Silicon Valley companies indicated that C/C++ programmers required VS experience. When the site license got renewed, the lab computers were too old to run Visual Studios .NET. The dean taught C/C++ on Linux and nobody told the administration.

    5. Re:The community college scene... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      Because there are much better languages than Swift for non iOS platforms.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    6. Re:The community college scene... by fred6666 · · Score: 1

      Exactly. But I would also add, how often do you see GNUStep and NeXT? Sounds pretty much like never to me.

    7. Re:The community college scene... by jellomizer · · Score: 1, Insightful

      A high school degree: You get Work
      A 2 year community college degree: You get a Job
      A 4 Year college degree: You get a Career
      A Masters degree: You get a Profession
      A Doctorate degree: You get a Calling

      Most Software development jobs, doesn't need or particularly want people who are too skilled in the area, because they are too much trouble, too much back talking, and too expensive.
       

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    8. Re:The community college scene... by fermion · · Score: 2
      You forgot to start with Pascal.

      There has been a tendency to use languages that are not that practical for teaching purposes. The alternative was Fortran, which is what I was taught, or C or C++, which is what I was taught in college. I think most would agree that these often are too complex and can impede the learning of principles.

      That said, even though Python is sloppy, I find it to be useful in many ways and it does not lead to too many bad practices like Java.

      It troubles me that most high school students still learn in Java. I can't imagine that Swift would be worse, or that they would not have a better experience in Python. To me though, if we want to teach programming without a net, and teach how to really think and debug, we should be teaching C. After all, the textbook is only 200 pages.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    9. Re:The community college scene... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      At least they, doesn't uses, too many commas.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    10. Re:The community college scene... by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

      ...
      A Doctorate degree: You get a Calling

      Well, if it's a doctor of divinity, that's accurate.

      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    11. Re:The community college scene... by sexconker · · Score: 1

      A high school degree: You get Work
      A 2 year community college degree: You get a Job
      A 4 Year college degree: You get a Career
      A Masters degree: You get a Profession
      A Doctorate degree: You get a Calling

      Most Software development jobs, doesn't need or particularly want people who are too skilled in the area, because they are too much trouble, too much back talking, and too expensive.

      Maybe 30 years ago. The following is much, much more accurate.

      Working after highschool: You get apprenticeship / training (paid) for a career in a union-protected trade.
      Higher education: You get massive debt and lose 4+ years of your life and are 4+ years behind others in the job market, only to take on unpaid internships for the glimmer of hope that the "experience" you get will make your resume look better.

    12. Re:The community college scene... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      A Doctorate degree: You become A Douchebag

      FTFY - Based on my experience with self-proclaimed PhDs on Slashdot.

    13. Re:The community college scene... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      You could show recruiters a bunch of code samples written in c, tell them that they were written in java, python, bash, sql, and the framework du jour, and they wouldn't know the difference. After all, how much intelligence can they build into their resume keyword search tool?

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    14. Re:The community college scene... by fred6666 · · Score: 1

      Probably yes. And how many languages were created at the same time as Python? Dozens? Hundreds? How many of them are still relevant today? Not much.
      Python is now a major language. Maybe because it has a good design, maybe because of luck, it doesn't matter, it's being used, therefore it's a good language to learn. It's also considered an easy language to first time learners which is a bonus.

      Swift isn't being used except on Apple iThings. Just because you are using it on Linux in your mom's basement doesn't make it any more relevant to develop on non-Apple devices. By the time Swift get popular on other platforms, Apple will have killed it and replaced it by their next language.

    15. Re:The community college scene... by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      They usually got filtered out as freshmen when I was in college, in the intro to programming class. That class was never going to teach you enough to get a decent job in programming, and was not intended to do so anyways. A few students felt compelled to be in the courses though, because their parents had picked out the career for them.

    16. Re:The community college scene... by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      In my 30+ years of programming, the worst programmers who caused the most damage were the ones who thought they were hot shit superstar programmers, despite making the same boneheaded errors all the time. Generally they wanted to work solo and never as a team.

    17. Re:The community college scene... by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      I disagree a bit here. The biggest failing I see in computer science is in trying to teach the popular languages like it was a mere two year trade school. Good programmers can learn any language, they don't need the university to teach it. Of course, the most popular languages may become the ones that are taught in higher level courses, that's just natural. But when a curriculum is derived around teaching what's popular then it loses a lot of academic value. A beginner's language while learning however may not necessarily be the most popular language. I started in Pascal, and it was great for teaching compared the other other popular languages because it enforced structured programming and strong typing from day one.

    18. Re:The community college scene... by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      But they're going to need the people with a career/profession/calling somewhere in the mix. Sure, the coders on the digital assembly line don't need to be the best, but you do need someone out there who's got more experience and education to design the system. Except with apps of course, apps are generally standalone pieces of fluff for the most part, no one cares about maintainability, performance, or reliability, so you can get an intern for that or else outsource it.

    19. Re:The community college scene... by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      A doctor of philosophy gets a pondering instead of a calling.

    20. Re:The community college scene... by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      It's not that Pascal is less complex that makes it good, another important fact is that it enforces good programming. We taught it to freshmen decades ago and those who already knew some BASIC wo proclaimed loudly that they were already good programmers would bitch and whine about how hard all the structured code was and why did they had to declare variables before using them.

    21. Re:The community college scene... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      based on my experience, no one here gives a flying fuck what someone who went from special ed to getting kicked out of college thinks does or says.

      You're wrong. I had some good discussion with people today on Slashdot. Spiking my comments with your negativity won't change that.

    22. Re:The community college scene... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      You could show recruiters a bunch of code samples written in c, tell them that they were written in java, python, bash, sql, and the framework du jour, and they wouldn't know the difference.

      On several occasions I've been approached by recruiters for CLI Linux positions, which I knew in general but not too for specific Linux distro. They always got hung on this "Red Hat GUI thingie" checkbox on their checklist. I told them that the GUI was irrelevant to CLI work. They refused to let me interview. Later on I discovered that the "Red Hat GUI thingie" was a branding package that Red Hat no longer uses.

    23. Re:The community college scene... by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      Indeed. My CS degree in 1991 included no programming instruction. They were completely clear that it was your job to teach yourself to program. There was an assumption that most people had grown up programming basic and assembler on home 8 bit machines and had got over the hump of comprehension about what programming is before arriving. What there was plenty of was courses on language theory, formal semantics, CPU architecture, compiler design and the whole gamut of CS things.

      To this day, I have no problem assimilating a new language quickly in terms of the language features I learned in college. On the other hand, learning someone's OO library for UI (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android etc) is a nightmare of vast complicated message passing schemes with perverse naming schemes. I've done it a few times, but it never ever sticks in my head if I stop.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    24. Re:The community college scene... by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      With a background in Pascal you can graduate to Ada and nobody uses Ada.

      Many people use ADA. It's the procedural subset of VHDL. Just because it's not seen in the world of webs and apps, it doesn't mean there isn't a vast chip design community for which is it one of the 2 principle languages.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    25. Re:The community college scene... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      and let's not forget my favorite. "this site is for nerds - citation please"

      We need the demographic data. That's the only way to settle the argument as to whether Slashdot is for EVERY NERD or 1% NERDS. I suspect the 1% nerds are few in number, probably because Slashdot is a relic of the dot com bust and only readers from that era know about it.

    26. Re:The community college scene... by Kellamity · · Score: 1

      Er, Community didn't exist prior to late 2014... People have been learning C++ a lot longer than that.

    27. Re:The community college scene... by Charlotte · · Score: 1

      You forgot to start with Scheme.

      FTFY.

    28. Re:The community college scene... by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      Yes, but what do you want from a beginner language? You want something that makes life easy by making complex problems simple.

      I don't know anything that does better than Python in that regard, because of the way it handles lists. Every other language I've looked at either makes list handling more complicated or makes everything else more complicated. But any task worth automating involves problems best conceptualised as list problems.

      There are lots of things I don't like about Python, and I often find myself using the very ugly for i in range(len(name_of_list)) : but for the most part it really gets to the heart of making computing meaningful, rather than a constant struggle with esoteric explicit sets of commands.

      Its weakness as a beginner language is that professional programmers are going to be expected to deal with esoteric explicit sets of commands, so follow up with a different language in second year.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    29. Re:The community college scene... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      If ponder isn't the collective noun of philosophers then it should be.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    30. Re:The community college scene... by Charlotte · · Score: 1

      I suspect the 1% nerds are few in number, probably because Slashdot is a relic of the dot com bust and only readers from that era know about it.

      I, for one, am glad that most of the script kiddies are gone.

    31. Re:The community college scene... by ShakaUVM · · Score: 1

      >The alternative was Fortran, which is what I was taught, or C or C++, which is what I was taught in college. I think most would agree that these often are too complex and can impede the learning of principles.

      Out of curiosity, what about modern C++ do you think is too complex for new programmers and can impede their learning of principles?

      20 years ago, I'd agree with you - char * strings and [] arrays, sure, were and are terrible - but modern C++ can be written without any of that stuff.

    32. Re:The community college scene... by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Well I was trying not to be cynical about it.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    33. Re:The community college scene... by fermion · · Score: 1
      Any computer language is going to teach you how to translate problems into code. The question is what else is the student going to learn.

      When I speak about complexity, I specifically mean the nets that the language provides. By enforcing 'good practices', the language becomes less suitable for production, and the student learns that discipline is extrinsic, and never learns the discipline of computer programing. This is a moot point for the web developer, who is never going to do anything outside of a safe sandbox with padded edges, but for others it is important.

      One can do anything in Fortran and C, but to get it to work, one has to develop and impose intrinsic rules. Again, for the office that does web development, such thing is not profitable as it interferes with the Red Bull and video game fueled culture. But for serious development, it is critical.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    34. Re: The community college scene... by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      That is why I stated for a High School Graduate, you would be expected to get Work, but not a Job.
      Work: Is doing whatever it takes to make a living. (I will move and plug in these computers for a few hundred bucks)
      Job: Is a steady living, however you are not necessary doing what you like. (You tell me what needs to be program and I will do what you say, as long as I can do it)
      Career: Is making a living as something you are willing to identify yourself as. (I am a currently Software Developer, If there is something new, Ill research it to see if I know how to fix it)
      Profession: Is working in something that you find fulfilling. (I am a Systems Architect, my designs have saved the lives of thousands of people)
      Calling: Is being able to work in something that you find enjoyable and can skip things that you find dull. (I am a specialist in Technology interaction with people, I don't need to do any of the coding work, but I get to layout how things should look like in the future)
       

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    35. Re:The community college scene... by lerxstz · · Score: 1

      Well the language may be ported over, but what about the frameworks? I haven't checked, but my guess is that is the piece that's missing

      --
      I chose to end my comments, not with a rim shot, but a long decaying F#7sus4
    36. Re:The community college scene... by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      There are a couple things you want in a beginner's language, and simplicity is one, but enforcement of good style is also vital. Consider BASIC, it was very simple but it was a terrible language for beginners as it encouraged really horrible programming practices. When assisting in a beginning programming class one of the hardest things to do (in 1983 era) was to break BASIC programmers out of their bad habits. I work with a lot of self-taught programmers (EE orientation) who like to stick state into global variables, randomly scatter around type casts until the compiler stops complaining, and so forth.

      Python works in the first sense. It's a bit weaker in the second sense given that type declarations don't exist. As a scripting language you don't find out errors until you run the code, there's no compile time validation or analysis that points out errors which makes it even more vital to very thorough code coverage testing. Ie, variable "x" was a string, but you just assigned an integer to it, how does the system know it's an error versus the programmer intentionally wanted implicit conversions done? In that sense I'd put Java above Python for beginners, despite Python having the simpler syntax and rules.

      It's perspective though. For me, I do lower level languages and experience shows that it is easier for someone who knows lower level languages to learn high level scripting languages than vice versa. Knowing the relationship of what the program does and how it affects the machine underneath is important. In scripting languages it's normal to be a bit loose and free with the rules, the goal is to get 'er done. For low level languages the goal is often correctness, reliability, and performance.

      Best class I think I had at university of Comparison of Programming Languages. Good at a theoretical level, but also because homework involved using other languages with wildly different approaches. Ada, Lisp, Prolog, etc. Such stuff gets you out of the mindset that programming is just doing sequential operations, and that there is more than one way to structure code and data.

    37. Re:The community college scene... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      I consider myslef a geek, ant not a nerd. However there are /. posters that insist both are the same ;)

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    38. Re:The community college scene... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Why not?
      If I was to learn a new language and would need to write for Linxu, I would take Swift (I already can C++ and Java etc.)
      On the other hand the first choice for a crossplatform Application is always Java/Scala/Groovy and the second C++/Qt (as my Python knowledge is still mediocre).

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    39. Re:The community college scene... by fred6666 · · Score: 1

      Why not?

      Because nobody uses it. Nobody has the runtime/interpreter/libraries/whatever to execute your swift program.
      Because it isn't in major distros (just checked and it's not in my Debian stable). On their web sites they only have packages for Ubuntu, I didn't check if they are also part of the Ubuntu repository or not.

      Why use Swift with all these shortcomings when you can use something else?

      If I was to learn a new language and would need to write for Linxu, I would take Swift (I already can C++ and Java etc.)

      But would you learn it as your first and only language? That seems counterproductive.

    40. Re:The community college scene... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Swift is an relatively elegant language and as thus a good candidate as first language.
      I was not aware that you focused on 'first language'.

      On Linux it should be easy to install Swift with an 'apt get' equivalent.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    41. Re:The community college scene... by fred6666 · · Score: 1

      Swift is an relatively elegant language and as thus a good candidate as first language.
      I was not aware that you focused on 'first language'.

      That was the whole point of the discussion. Which language to introduce to community college students, most of which never used another language before.

      On Linux it should be easy to install Swift with an 'apt get' equivalent.

      Maybe it should. But it isn't. Nobody cared for Swift enough in the Linux community to include it in most repositories. It's a sign that it's not used outside the Apple closed world.

    42. Re:The community college scene... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Then I did not grasp the point of the discussion.
      My understanding was that 'random college students', that failed at college should learn Swift and become App developers.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  3. Re:Only apps can app apps! by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1, Funny

    Oh great, now look at what you've done. You got him all excited, he'll be running around for hours before falling asleep.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  4. Sturgeon's Revelation by Chas · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Oh boy! So there will be that many more (Cr)apps!

    Because we absolutely MUST stay in compliance with Sturgeon!

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
    1. Re:Sturgeon's Revelation by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There are millions of apps for iOS. Apple understands that you need large numbers of developers churning out apps until one goes viral and makes them Apple of money. And better that it is on iOS first, of course.

      They are basically setting up monkeys with typewriters, hoping one accidentally creates the next Flappy Bird.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  5. Never rest in search of cheap wages by Seven+Spirals · · Score: 1

    H1B program gotcha down? Never fear, we'll find low cost coders by hook or by crook! Everyone knows programming is "just typing" so about a half hour after your typing class, you'll be programming!

    UGH! Well, it's not surprising some megacorps want to encourage everyone to be a "STEM coder". No worries, you only end up working about 10x as hard in school to make just a bit less than your business weasel classmates!

  6. what a bunch of butt hurt losers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It never surprises me to so all the butt hurt dipshit comments on these boards when a major company like Apple releases a comprehensive guide to learning their relatively new language. Swift is a 4th or 5th gen language designed to allow people to incorporate a vast amount of technology into their applications. Why does it matter if Apple releases their code and a helpful teaching platform for free? If they charges $1000 bucks for it you'd still rant about nothing useful. Half of you idiots don't even program and wouldn't know the difference between SWIFT and Python anyways.

    Apple is doing a service to anyone who WANTS to learn their language. If you don't want to learn it, I'm sure you can find another language to learn. Why would you criticize any company for making their language open sourced AND free to learn? And no, to the idiot who thinks its only for iOS, SWIFT works for Linux and MacOS too. In fact its been ported to almost every other platform using this compiler:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RemObjects_Software

    Take your shitty attitude and go somewhere else, preferably to the level 1 tech support desk your career will no undoubtedly be confined to until your replaced by automation.

    By the way, Swift is one of the top four loved languages on Stack Overflow:

    https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted

    1. Re:what a bunch of butt hurt losers by sexconker · · Score: 2

      I'm not sure why anyone is hating on this. And I say that as someone who loves to hate things.
      I hate Apple. I don't particularly care for Swift either way. But it's fucking widespread, industry-relevant (and get-a-damned-job-relevant), and free.

      What's not to like? People who will use Swift to make shitty apps (apps! apps!) are the same people who would be using Java to make shitty web applets. People who will use Swift to make good things, or who will reject Swift and stick with C/C++/whatever remain unaffected. (And LUDDITES don't even enter the picture here.)

    2. Re:what a bunch of butt hurt losers by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      My long-standing comment on the subject is, "The good thing about making it easier to write software is that more people can write software. The bad thing about making it easier to write software is that more people can write software."

      The thing is, having 10x as many people who can "code" isn't a virtue. It's a nuisance. It just means that there will be 10x as much bad software, making it even harder to find good software written by people who actually know what they're doing, because it gets lost in the noise.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    3. Re:what a bunch of butt hurt losers by Exrasser · · Score: 1

      More people knowing how to code is a good ting in my view and I think you have to see this is a bigger perspective. Everything that can be programed can have embedded agendas build in, and most people are oblivious to that fact. Douglas Rushkoff - Program or Be Programmed - https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    4. Re:what a bunch of butt hurt losers by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Stackoverflow is not a valid metric. People who know their language well enough because they use it every day at work as well as on anything else they want to create are not going to need stackoverflow, so you fail to capture the best.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    5. Re:what a bunch of butt hurt losers by yuriklastalov · · Score: 1

      I want to write apps in COBOL. Make COBOL Great Again by leveraging synergies and providing premier user experiences based on the latest paradigms. By utilizing COBOL, we ensure that the code monkeys can't jump ship to our competitors and no-one will bother leaking our code because no-one will understand it except for some old farts who won't touch an app in the first place.

    6. Re:what a bunch of butt hurt losers by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      That would have been true decades ago.
      I'm using minimum 3 Java Versions more or less in parallel because my contractors are unwilling to upgrade to the latest (Java 1.8). Obviously I have not all new stuff in Java 1.8 in my fingertips when I'm constantly forced to use Java 1.7 or 1.6.

      Also keep in mind the dramatic huge amount of available libraries and tools. It is not a shame to forget e.g. how exactly version resolution in Maven works and look it up, and getting an example on Stackoverflow.

      Especially when a tool/framework like Spring is three versions behind because no one dares(has time) to upgrade and you are user to mainly use the latest features.

      At the moment you have to think or search in your code longer than 5 minutes you should long have googled, checked Stackoverflow or asked an colleague.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  7. Re:Oh great, more shovelware coming by mellon · · Score: 1

    Yup. God knows we need more apps. That's totally the itch I need scratched.

  8. If you are going to fail... by Dareth · · Score: 1

    If you are going to fail, you might as well do it Swiftly.

    --

    I only look human.
    My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
  9. The biggest obstacle.... by dasgoober · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The biggest obstacle isn't learning - tutorials are everywhere.
    The real obstacle is that you need an Mac to write/compile the code.

    1. Re:The biggest obstacle.... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      How can a Mac mini for $500 or a Powerbook for $800 be an obstacle?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  10. Re: Lots of Money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You're kinda behind the times. Don't need a developer's license to code.

  11. They are damatically missing developpers by Vapula · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With the rise of Android, we see iPhone/iPads becoming the minor platform. More and more developpers start to think Android before Apple...

    And with the developpers fleeing that highly proprietary platform, the ecosystem is slowly becoming less and less attracting for new developpers... spiralling to iPhone becoming eventually irrelevant

    So they are trying to mass recruit developpers by teaching an useless language to as many people as possible...

    Time spent on learning Swift is not spent in learning C, C++, Java, Python, PHP, Javascript, ...

  12. Gig economy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ... for free, the curriculum for a year-long course ...

    This is a requirement of the "gig economy": We need to be more than contractors paying our own health insurance, holiday fund, pension fund, training, uniforms and tools. We also need to be creators/makers selling a product, not just our sweat and experience for the lowest price.

  13. Same crap, different syntax by OYAHHH · · Score: 2

    While I am sure it's a thrill to someone to come up with their own "computer language" it is pretty much a pointless exercise.

    Let's be honest, pretty much all computer languages since the first one, and especially the more recent ones, last 20 years are merely repeats of the same stuff.

    Same loops, same if statements, same function calls, same everything.

    Yes, we may have new libraries (which are not the language), for say accessing a new gadget, but the basic language constructs are pretty much all the same. Just with different syntax.

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    1. Re:Same crap, different syntax by ljw1004 · · Score: 1

      Let's be honest, pretty much all computer languages since the first one, and especially the more recent ones, last 20 years are merely repeats of the same stuff. Same loops, same if statements, same function calls, same everything.

      There's some genuinely new programming constructs like "async/await" in the 2010s. (well, Scheme and StandardML have long had "callcc" but it was was basically unimplementable in an efficient way, and Scheme got "shift/reset" in the 2000s which is more feasibly than callcc but still a bit hairy).

    2. Re:Same crap, different syntax by istartedi · · Score: 1

      APL, for those who don't know, is Apparently Prince's Language. Programs are a string of unpronounceable symbols.

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    3. Re:Same crap, different syntax by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      While I am sure it's a thrill to someone to come up with their own "computer language" it is pretty much a pointless exercise.

      Let's be honest, pretty much all computer languages since the first one, and especially the more recent ones, last 20 years are merely repeats of the same stuff.

      Same loops, same if statements, same function calls, same everything.

      There are probably no two popular programming languages that are merely different syntax for the exact same set of base concepts. Each language designer chooses the most important concepts to explicitly encode, and which to force the programmer to deal with.

      Neither the similarities or the differences between languages show the whole exercise as pointless.

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  14. Raise the value of Apps and/or value of profession by seoras · · Score: 1

    Apps are the scourge of software engineering and developers.
    There's little or no value in spending significant time working on them, certainly not as an indie.
    If you want to teach App dev then focus it on game development with the outcome of a job in an industry that makes about the only money there is in apps.
    Otherwise fix the broken attitude of the smart phone endowed public to not expect, or demand, everything for free.
    Grudging handing over the small change they'd happily give a busker or beggar on the streets in exchange for hard work and something they want and will use.