Apple Expands 'Everyone Can Code' Initiative to Students Around the World

[fairuz]

While it might be easy to jab at Apple for an alterior motive (i.e. learn how to code in thier language for future App Store inputs) one might want to consider the dismal academic performance of the average US student. I believe the average reading level in the US is still 3rd or 5th grade. Either way it’s abysmal.

Current public curriculums seem to focus on a STEM outline. So to include coding, or other computer languages, into early learning is the best place for such an effort, and useful skills sets for the future.

I learned to read music when I was six. The main instrument I learned on was the piano. But I can read for other instruments from having learned a basic music language. So if kids learn Swift to any point of proficiency, it will only help in their absorption of other programming platforms, not hinder it, nor make them slaves to writing Apple Apps.

Yeah, it's surprising how few American high schools have even the most basic computer science course. I'll bet they can easily at least find people to teach Python but just haven't gotten it through their management yet. They shouldn't have even waited until this new tech boom. It should've happened in the 90s.

 

[dogslobber]

Pointless. AI will replace programmers.

 

[i.mac]

Pointless. AI will replace programmers.

True. Unless you program AI with swift, in which case Apple’s effort for all to learn to code is still valid.

 

[mi7chy]

Investing in Swift alone is a dead end like Objective C. You'd probably want to look at the leaders in space, autonomous vehicles, machine learning, etc. to find out the in-demand languages such as C++, Python, OpenCL, C, Assembly, Labview, Matlab, etc.

 

[TheTruth101]

I believe coding will be next to learning a regular language. In my office we have an employee who builds apps for everything for internal use. He even created an app that will read the files created by Adobe Premiere and translate them into excel so we can see if there are errors in the editing compared against a quality control formula. The app substract all the metadata of the file, metadata that is not public.

Coding will be the next thing to put together elements.

 

[CarlJ]

I learned to read music when I was six. The main instrument I learned on was the piano. But I can read for other instruments from having learned a basic music language. So if kids learn Swift to any point of proficiency, it will only help in their absorption of other programming platforms, not hinder it, nor make them slaves to writing Apple Apps.

Very much this. The first programming language is hard, because you're learning a bunch of fundamental concepts is hard. The second on is also somewhat hard, because you're discovering which of those concepts are invariant and which vary, or appear in different ways from one language to the next. After that, adding languages gets easier with each new one.

 

[Frisco]

How about
'Everyone Can Farm' Initiative to Students Around the World?'

 

[MH01]

This is a good idea. Well played apple

 

[JoeG4]

Investing in Swift alone is a dead end like Objective C. You'd probably want to look at the leaders in space, autonomous vehicles, machine learning, etc. to find out the in-demand languages such as C++, Python, OpenCL, C, Assembly, Labview, Matlab, etc.

If they want to get into web stuff, then html, css, javascript, and some popular javascript frameworks too.

I'm still surprised how dang popular labview is. geez.

 

[MH01]

Everyone can code... as long as you live in one of these 21 countries

And have the prerequisites to attend college

 

[-BigMac-]

Wooo finally I can say I’m proud of being a student of RMIT

 

[iTom17]

Even the Netherlands? That's pretty cool actually. Sad it's not at Fontys University of Applied Sciences.

At the other hand: I do currently study for a Bachelor in IT, that includes a lot of software engineering. Already know the basics by now, so that's something.

 

[Piggie]

This sounds exactly like UK schools nowadays.
Everyone is a winner, there are no losers, we are all as good as each other.
Oh and look, a Pink unicorn with rainbows is over there also!

Yes Tim, everyone can code "Badly"

That's like saying, everyone can spin a pot on a potters wheel. Yes, everyone will have a lump of clay that in some way might resemble a very ugly pot. A few will have a superb pot, but indeed, everyone CAN make a pot.
Just Everyone can't make anything that's any good. Only some people can.

 

[CarpalMac]

Take what’s positive and make it negative.

It seems only fair, considering the slating the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation got on a thread some time ago on this site for it's bias towards Microsoft software.

 

[Tech198]

How about
'Everyone Can Farm' Initiative to Students Around the World?'

too exhausting...

 

[CarlJ]

How about
'Everyone Can Farm' Initiative to Students Around the World?'

That's possibly a good idea. Which company whose expertise is in farming are you suggesting should take this up?

 

[576316]

Should learn everything not just Swift

Exactly my thoughts. Learning to program Swift on macOS and iOS is giving yourself a very narrow skillset. Likely useful, but narrow.
[doublepost=1510221640][/doublepost]

allowing them to drive down wages

To be fair, I'm a programming undergraduate and it shocked me when I saw the average wages for programming in the US. They're eye wateringly high compared to similar jobs in the UK.

But obviously, falling wages is never a good thing. Especially in an industry that is promised to be so lucrative.

 

[Bacillus]

Yeah, it's surprising how few American high schools have even the most basic computer science course. I'll bet they can easily at least find people to teach Python but just haven't gotten it through their management yet. They shouldn't have even waited until this new tech boom. It should've happened in the 90s.

Oh Apple bring us a Swift version for Windows/Chromebooks that schools can afford.

 

[576316]

Pointless. AI will replace programmers.

I think at that point, AI would have replaced absolutely all jobs. So I don't think we'd have to worry all that much. Bring on my UBI. Programmers/software engineers will be the last to go.

 

[travelsheep]

What Apple is really saying: Everyone can take up a credit and finance an Apple Laptop or Apple iPad

 

[nextuser]

I am actually just about to graduate from RMIT with a degree in CS.

Let me just say that I am 100% certain that this will produce 0 competent programmers, the quality of the professors at RMIT is quite low. Anybody who is of reasonable intelligence would be able to teach themselves how to program, and would be better programmers than the people who are supposedly teaching them how to code.

For the forseeable future, programming will be largely a self-taught field. Anybody who is not capable of teaching themselves will not end up being a good programmer.

I am expecting the quality of apps to go down even further.

 

[ChrisCW11]

For Apple this is just about entrenching a generation of students into their closed ecosystem. I mean sure, learning ANY language is about learning logic skills and problem solving which is transferable, but Swift is so one dimensional and limiting skill that only supports one company comes off as very trite endeavor. Java or even C# these days works on so many other platforms and is less fixated on herding cattle towards a future that supports only one company's profit margins. Learning Swift requires buying Mac's and iDevices, it's so utterly greedy and transparent.

Having said that the idea that EVERBODY must CODE in the future is also ridiculous. Apple should be focused on innovation to let the average person "program" using natural language constructs and machine learning so that people do not have to toil in some low level language to get something done. A scientist should be as able to ask Siri to solve a problem by providing some natural language constructs and rules just as a person at home asking Siri to compile a list of vacation destinations with a set or criteria, price and ranking scheme and in both cases neither having to open up XCode (on a Mac of course) and start pounding out code or scrapping the App Store to find something that is already is nearly what they want to use.

Yes, there will be a need for people in the future to build those tools and services for the masses, but even so a good natural language development system would eventually pull most people out of the compiler and move them into a system that is more natural and creative then a text editor.

If in 20 years 80% of the jobs out there require knowledge of Swift and how to code and compile, well, that will be a post-apocalypse scenario for a lot of people.

 

[meaning-matters]

You do need a $1500+ computer.

 

[AdonisSMU]

This is great and all but their code editor Xcode is hot garbage. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Like there is no excuse for it to be that bad. Xcode doesn't support JavaScript, HTML and CSS out of the box. Apple won't even let people implement all of the missing features as extensions onto Xcode geesh!!! Even free open source editors like Atom and VSCode end up being better options.

 

[Gorms]

Swift will settle down at some point. It has been turbulent these past few years, though. At that point, there will be an accepted "best practice" for Swift code, which will typically produce the best results. All languages have a best practice.

Swift is settling already. The jump from 3-4 is minor in comparison to the baffling that was hellscape of swift 1 - 1.x - 2.

My bigger thought for this is... where are all the jobs to support this? There aren't a huge amount of opportunities to support this in the UK. At all. The App Store race to the bottom pricing structure & Apples 30% cut make it pretty hard to support yourself as an indie developer as it is. I don't see how a large influx of developers does anything except drive down quality as well as, ultimately, pay as multiple people have said. Then you factor in the fact that the same thing is happening in developing countries (and they can really drive the price down) and then at some point you'll find you're at the point where the web dev industry is now which is face down in the gutter looking for pennies.

You'll want more than one language under your belt to do well in this industry but that desire for work across languages comes in time once you've learnt your first I guess. If I was just starting now & had a bunch of Apple kit I'd probably pick Swift too though.