Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think starting out with parenthesis based programming language is the best starting point for new programmers. You'll probably just scare them. I'm saying this with my huge love for Scheme. Of course, if you're already programming and want to learn/try something different, Haskell or Racket, or any other functional language is a great option.
What makes Swift Playground so compelling is that it seems to be specifically tailored towards new programmers, with the way it teaches -- it provides basic information about Swift, and does not overload information at the reader at once. And even existing programmers can make use of it because it's just a Swift playground (part of Xcode) underneath.
I think Swift Playground is genuinely fun as you can manipulate an object on an iPad. It's pretty much like playing a game in that sense. That's something you just can't get out of reading a book. It makes it that much more approachable.
If you show kids or even new programmers Swift Playgrounds along with something like Learn You a Haskell or Realm of Racket, or even tell them about Scratch, which do you think they would gravitate towards more?
Hm, again I haven't tried it - I don't have an iOS device that can run it - does it actually use Swift syntax? This is only anecdotal (anecdata) but both my friend and partner (both 27) are learning to program for the first time using Racket, who both barely know what a 'web browser' is and they're both finding it really easy to pick up, and even have started 'thinking in lists'. It also was my first programming language..
But anyways, I'm excited to give this app a try - I'm always glad to see more tools to help people get started.
In my experience, people expect programming languages to look different than human languages (and maybe more like math) and thus aren't put off by whatever structure the one they're learning takes.
It's after people have gotten used to a few languages that they start to develop syntactic prejudices, for example against "parenthesis languages" if they've been doing a lot of coding in C-family languages.
What makes Swift Playground so compelling is that it seems to be specifically tailored towards new programmers, with the way it teaches -- it provides basic information about Swift, and does not overload information at the reader at once. And even existing programmers can make use of it because it's just a Swift playground (part of Xcode) underneath.
I think Swift Playground is genuinely fun as you can manipulate an object on an iPad. It's pretty much like playing a game in that sense. That's something you just can't get out of reading a book. It makes it that much more approachable.
If you show kids or even new programmers Swift Playgrounds along with something like Learn You a Haskell or Realm of Racket, or even tell them about Scratch, which do you think they would gravitate towards more?