Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How a Nine-Year-Old Australian Landed a Coveted WWDC Apple Scholarship
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Makes me sick thinking how many non-Indian Australian nine-year-old girls were passed over.
Yes.
It is absolutely possible for humans to be born on any continent on this planet we call earth.
[doublepost=1466196126][/doublepost]
Well.... She's Australian for one, not an American. And not a white American female (largest benefactors of AA).
So AA would not have any bearing in this.
Nice try though.
Yes she is, but she resides in Australia. In America on the other hand we have magic dirt which turns anyone who reaches our territory, legall or illegally, into Americans, or at worst, undocumented Americans.
It's never too late. I'm turning fifty soon and will be learning along with my eleven year old as we explore Swift Playgrounds together. I intend to keep taking up new interests and hobbies and fields of study until I'm physically no longer able to, for whatever reason. My mom is over 80 and always interested in teaching herself new languages. My dad has become quite a proficient computer nerd at 80 after starting with them around age 70.
Just get started whenever inspiration strikes at whatever age it strikes and see where the momentum takes you.
Oh no they weren't.
Inflation is a real thing and the '80s were a long time ago. Relatively speaking, computers are much cheaper today. Programming is far more accessible to far more people now, due to cost, availability, tools, and not least the internet, which allows instant access to a huge variety of programming info, as opposed to having to hunt down and read books.--Eric
I think in the last few years there's been something of a gap as a lot of kids spent their free time as content consumers rather than creators. I see a resurgence in the interest in creating with kids obsessed with making things in Minecraft. Their older siblings and cousins didn't necessarily have that. This is just my opinion and casual observation as a mom and aunt.Are there really any more now than their used to be? Seems to me like programming was much more accessible in the 80s, when home computers were cheaper than most smartphones are today, and the only user interface they had was a BASIC command prompt. Most of today's top games programmers (especially in the UK) were writing games in their bedrooms in the 80s and 90s as young teenagers, and nearly everybody learned enough to at least mess up the machines running in their local computer store
Lovely stuff! I started off coding stuff on my spectrum and in AMOS when I was around 7 years old, because loads of my older friends were into it too. It almost seems like we're getting back to the old days of kids getting into programming. It's pretty exciting! And I'd love for Apple to open up the potential of iPads with some kind of sandbox programming mode for newcomers.
I wish this girl all the best. She'll go far!
[doublepost=1466247521][/doublepost]
I agree. Whilst computers weren't as prominent back then, if you had one you could code software for it. I guess the same is true now but languages are much more complex, licenses are more confusing, and sometimes they can become security problems.
What helped back then was even just using a computer required a base knowledge of command line. These days you don't.
I wish this girl all the best. She'll go far!
[doublepost=1466247521][/doublepost]
Are there really any more now than their used to be? Seems to me like programming was much more accessible in the 80s, when home computers were cheaper than most smartphones are today, and the only user interface they had was a BASIC command prompt. Most of today's top games programmers (especially in the UK) were writing games in their bedrooms in the 80s and 90s as young teenagers, and nearly everybody learned enough to at least mess up the machines running in their local computer store
I agree. Whilst computers weren't as prominent back then, if you had one you could code software for it. I guess the same is true now but languages are much more complex, licenses are more confusing, and sometimes they can become security problems.
What helped back then was even just using a computer required a base knowledge of command line. These days you don't.
http://www.apple.com/newsroom/2016/06/swift-playgrounds-app-makes-learning-to-code-easy-and-fun.html
It was in the keynote, but from what they showed it was easy to dismiss it as little more than interactive tutorials. Beyond the coding lessons, you can start a playground project with a template or even a blank-slate. And they export to Xcode when you're ready to get serious.
Now with Swift it's never been a better time to start. Obj-C was just horrible by comparison and very difficult for newcomers. It was a cobbled together language and therefore wasn't designed for uniformity or clarity from the outset. This is a big part of why Apple has developed Swift.
Swift does appear to get tough with the advanced concepts, but it starts out simply and you can take your time and progress as quickly or slowly as you like. You may never even need much of the advanced stuff depending on what you're doing.
And it's great to keep learning and stay active. My one concern in all of this is how iOS is managed by Apple's approval process. I see this as a major and ongoing challenge to freedom of speech and expression.
Software development has always been a young man's sport. Few have kept the gusto to keep on coding when the gray takes over one's scalp.
There has been a lot of research going on with Swift adoption. Findings show it's following an age demographic with the classic "old dog, new tricks" line quoted.
In fact, with C now over forty years old, some view it going the way of FORTRAN and COBOL. Many outfits now consider C and C language derivatives as obsolete with the exception of embedded systems. Even then, there are efforts porting the Swift compiler for embedded ARM processors.
Or perhaps her and her fellow students are more mature than some.
yes she is indian. indians will rule the world one day one way or another just like in the old days!!
I'm of Irish heritage and was born in Australia - of Irish and Irish-Scottish parents - I'm Australian. She is of Indian heritage and I understand she was born in Australia of Indian parents - she is Australian. In any case, anyone who is naturalised Australian is Australian. Our real claimants to this land are aboriginal. I guess you must be a Red Indian with no other heritage to feel that you are American, but then I have never heard a genuine Red Indian express a feeling that someone else's race or heritage is a measure of a person. A very famous and inspirational American and one of my heroes said it is the content of someones mind that distinguishes a person, not the colour of their skin.
She is just lovely school kid with supportive parents and teachers and a flair for coding. Why pull the race card on a nine-year-old little girl? It's just arrogant and tasteless.
There was George Marsaglia (you'll find him on Google), who at the age of 86 still wrote software that most people would be proud of. He's not with us anymore, and its a huge loss.
Exactly . I'm in the same boat, she like us is Australian.
Otherwise every American might as well call themselves , English, France, Irish etc.....
The confusion comes due to a number of journalists making reference to her as Indian origin in articles. The fools here are the journalists, they jsut needed to say she and her parents were from Australia , I understand why some posters were confused.
Last edited:
