Tim Cook: Coding Languages Were 'Too Geeky' For Students Until We Invented Swift (thestar.com)

theodp writes: Speaking to a class of Grade 7 students taking coding lessons at the Apple Store in Eaton Centre, the Toronto Star reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook told the kids that most students would shun programming because coding languages were 'too geeky' until Apple introduced Swift. "Swift came out of the fundamental recognition that coding languages were too geeky. Most students would look at them and say, 'that's not for me,'" Cook said as the preteens participated in an Apple-designed 'Everyone Can Code' workshop. "That's not our view. Our view is that coding is a horizontal skill like your native languages or mathematics, so we wanted to design a programming language that is as easy to learn as our products are to use."

Comments

Congratulations you invented LOGO!

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> we wanted to design a programming language that is as easy to learn as our products are to use

Congratulations you invented LOGO!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)

Re:Congratulations you invented LOGO!

[red_dragon]

Congratulations you invented LOGO!

Or, they could've dug through their own software catalogue:

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

Coding is cool bro!

[Austerity Empowers]

Code like a beast Bro! Bro that code into shape! Be awesome! Beer at noon. Pointers? What are you a nerd? Memory management? That's like for the CPU to deal with, bro, be bro! Efficient code? BRO! They keep making faster CPUs! Mutilate that code!

Bro, it's got what your body craves.

Re:Coding is cool bro!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the world needs more "programmers" that think like this.....

Do us all a favor Cook, get rid of it. If they need a "cool" language to be programmers, then we DON'T need them to be programmers. We WANT the geeks who will try to make their code as efficient as possible, or implement a RFC with immaculate detail. We WANT them to know the limits and pitfalls of their chosen language forwards and backwards so that they make better more secure code. We DON'T want people who will only code if a monkey can do it. (Chances are you could automate that anyway.)

I'll take the geek's code over the quarterback's code any day, and if we had our way Cook, you wouldn't have a choice about it either. (We want some laws to forbid the company ideal of profit over responsible software development.)

Wait, what?

[squiggleslash]

I know Jobs had an RDF, and Cook presumably wants to copy that, but the RDF was supposed to affect the people around him, not himself. Does he really think Swift, which is another me-too language that looks like almost every other popular programming language except Python, is somehow not "geeky"? It's no more or less programmer hostile than Javascript FFS.

Is Cook trolling? That's got to be it, right?

Re:Wait, what?

[AHuxley]

Its virtue signalling and educational political correctness.
So much money has been added to gov education over the decades from the gov and private sector in the USA.
The amount per student in some city and states should have produced amazing results if a lack of spending in the past was the only problem.
After decades of testing the results are not looking as good as expected. Average students given support, funding, new computers, GUI robots, computers in the home still all fail to study, won't learn, cant pass tests, cant pass exams.

The politically correct educators cant admit they got it so wrong for many decades and that all that new funding was wasted on below average students.

So its has to be what was been used to educate the very average and below average students. Change the computer education and the results for below average students will improve for some reason.
More spending and a new way to look at computers has to work in ways that past funding and new computers did not.
Everyone just wants to keep the funding going and see the next gen of computers sold and supported.
The sales pitch is the new language. In the past it was robot kits, tablets, laptops, GUI, desktops, new calculators with the needed new textbooks.
The test results stay the same every generation as the problem is not lack of funding, the lack of computers, the wrong computer language.

The students just won't, cant, have no interesting in study. Every other aspect of education has been improved. Books, GUI, buildings, food, more teachers, better teachers, more gov money, private sector money, computers.

Re:Wait, what?

[werepants]

So much money has been added to gov education over the decades from the gov and private sector in the USA.

The amount per student in some city and states should have produced amazing results if a lack of spending in the past was the only problem.

What the hell are you talking about? In my state, total per-pupil funding is about $7000-$8000/yr, and has barely been keeping pace with inflation. For reference, daycare for one kid costs about $2000 PER MONTH here - what the schools get is a pittance by comparison. And keep in mind that daycare can be done by college students and stay-at-home moms, while teachers must have a bachelor's degree, minimum, and often have an advanced degree. Many of those are STEM degrees, worth quite a bit in industry.

The schools haven't been adequately funded for decades, and things are only getting worse.

Tim Cook says a lot of shit.

[Gravis Zero]

Just because the CEO of Apple says something doesn't mean he's not totally full of shit. Does anyone honestly think removing the 3.5mm jack from the iPhone was about courage?

Less geeky?

[Daetrin]

I've never used Swift, let's see what the code samples on wikipedia look like...

var str = "hello,"
str += " world"
---
let myValue = anOptionalInstance?.someMethod()
---
let leaseStart = aBuilding.TenantList[5].leaseDetails?.startDate
---
guard let leaseStart = aBuilding.TenantList[5]?.leaseDetails?.startDate else {
//handle the error case where anything in the chain is nil
//else scope must exit the current method or loop
}
---
protocol SupportsToString {
func toString() -> String
}
extension String: SupportsToString {
func toString() -> String {
return self
}
}
---
func !=(lhs: T, rhs: T) -> Bool

Ahh yes, it's very clear how Swift is so much less "geeky" than other languages like C# or Java! I'm sure a student looking at it for the first time would instantly realize how much better it is instead of saying "that's not for me"!

Re:Less geeky?

[mwvdlee]

It's the lack of semicolons. Kids think semicolons are geeky ;)

Agreed, LOLCODE more geeky

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably the students had the (usual) comparison between Swift and LOLCODE. Here is a Wikipedia example of Swift:

guard let leaseStart = aBuilding.TenantList[5]?.leaseDetails?.startDate else { //handle the error case where anything in the chain is nil //else scope must exit the current method or loop
        }

Here is an example of LOLCODE:

HAI 1.0
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
IM IN YR LOOP
      UP VAR!!1
      VISIBLE VAR
      IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10? KTHX
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
KTHXBYE

Tim Cook? Really?

[Opportunist]

That's the man that thought removing a headphone jack from a cellphone is a good idea and that having non-replaceable batteries are what customers want.

Who in their sane mind listens to an imbecile like that?