Geoff McGimpsey pointed this out:
Five easy ways to get you coding
Aside from the usual “Programming is fun” speech that you will get from any geek, learning to code can help you to solve many day to day technical quickly and quite easily. It also earns you a fair amount of kudos among other computer users. That’s why I’ve put together a list of five great ways to learn to program without having to spend hours reading a book that is more than likely going to go out of date within a year or two. – from memeburn
Geoff runs a PR and public affairs agency, McGimpsey Communications, and is a top bloke.
There was also some brief discussion on Twitter about the difference between initiatives like “iPad into schools” and projects like Raspberry Pi – a £25 computer designed to teach kids about programming. They both represent a leap forward in technology capability for schools though it’s most definitely not an either-or situation.
- The iPad enhances communication, increases interactivity and collaboration. It partially replaces textbooks, can replace notepads, assures delivery of assignments and timetables, can even be the active element in a homework setting. Sounds fantastic – but the iPad is not a programmable environment. For whatever reason known best to themselves, they won’t let even sandboxed development environments on there. They’ve conceded to let some BASIC interpreters (like in the C64 emulator) but there’s no way to produce anything else or expert that content out.
- Raspberry Pi, in contrast, provides an inexpensive and, more importantly, permissive way for kids to get involved in programming computers. It’s a UK clone of Arduino – a basic ARM-based machine running a Linux shell. In my opinion they need to make it a little more accessible than this, but ultimately easily hackable. In other words – not the antithesis of the iPad but more of the iPad being a companion to the device. This project obviously aims to restart the home computing revolution that began in the 80s in the UK with the BBC Micro and the Spectrum.
This is a useful resource for Computer Programming for Everyone (cp4e).