Learning to program means thinking in another language, that of the computer. And an automatic translator is not enough, for example a programming ChatGPT to which you can delegate the task of writing the apps. Because in reality it’s not that simple.
Meanwhile, why programming languages are just the tip of the iceberg. Below, in the immersed part that cannot be seen, there is a way of thinking different from that used to express oneself in a natural language such as Italian or English. But there are some similarities. Meanwhile, on the purpose of the code: «The programs – Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman wrote in their fundamental text already in 1984 Structure and interpretation of computer programs – are intended to be read by humans and only incidentally executed by computers». The code, however complex, is a communication tool between people: it is in fact designed to be written and read by people. When it arrives at the computer, it turns into a sequence of ones and zeros. In fact, whatever language a program is written in, from Javascript to Python, from Swift to C, it is “translated” (compiled or interpreted) from other software to be able to run from your computer. Programming, from the point of view of humans, is a language used to communicate information also towards themselves (the programmer who rereads his own code to do debug o refactoring). But it is also much more.
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“Speaking” computer language actually means learning to think with the language of code, that is, in a computational manner. Certain, today there are tools that were unimaginable until a year ago. ChatGPT speaks Italian and also several code languages: you can ask anything and an answer arrivesalthough we are still far from general artificial intelligence that does everything by itself. Actually ChatGPT, Bard and CoPilot in the programming field they are extraordinary amplifiers of skills, they do not replace people and their skills. He lacks creativity. “We can teach him everything there is, but not what isn’t there”, says Samuele Viganò, last year of the Lodi scientific high school.
The key word is skills. Viganò is one of the boys and girls who participated in the Swift Student Challenge organized by Apple with the motto “Programming is for everyone”. It is a competition that allows you to test your skills. And it shows that programming means much more than simply writing code. Programming is also the understanding and manipulation of programs understood as hierarchical compositions of computational structuresand it is a cognitively important skill: having it means having learned in a different way not only to express ideas but also to think. Another culture, as well as another language.
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Over the years the Swift Student Challenge di Apple it saw thousands of students from all over the world pass by who, like Viganò, showed their creativity in the world of programming and app development, acquiring concrete skills. Apple’s Swift Student Challenge, among other things, returns in 2024: in February students will have three weeks to send their projects, but they can obviously work on them right now. On 350 winners all over the world, 50 will be awarded as Distinguished Winners and next summer they will be invited to the headquarters of Apple a Cupertino, in Californiato get to know each other and meet Apple engineers.
Viganò won the Challenge last year, when he was in his fourth year of high school. “I discovered it by chance, watching a YouTube video from a student who had won and attended Apple’s developer conference. I had informed myself, even though at that time I had no programming skills and I promised myself that I would try to compete if I ever learned to develop. I started learning Swift in June 2022 and participated in April 2023.”
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Viganò has developed an app that helps patients (and medical students) because it is capable of “explain” in three minutes what a CT scan is (computed axial tomography) and which organs are seen in the newly scanned image. The levers that motivate him are the passion for programming on the one hand and helping people on the other. The future, after high school, is aimed at information technology: “I would like to study engineering. I saw a course at MIT in Boston that I really like because it brings together programming and artificial intelligence. Studying the interaction between our brain and technology is an area that fascinates me greatly, I am also interested in the development of inclusive devices and assistive technology in general, to develop something that facilitates inclusion.”
Edoardo Cal he is another student, from Milan, with a record: won three times “in 2017, 2019 and 2021”, He says. Programming came from a very young age and then there were the Swift Challenges: “I first approached the Challenge in 2017, at 15 years old. Con la filosofia “Learning by doing” in mind, I chose to use the opportunity to put my skills into practice. In the following years, I continued to work in app development, gradually improving.” In fact, the goal is not so much to compete, but to improve. “Even if victory is? a coveted objective – says De Cal, today an engineering student at the Polytechnic of Milan –, I think the process itself has extraordinary value. Having created something starting from scratch, putting yourself to the test, tackling the various code bugs and difficulties?, and? Already? by itself? a victory.”
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His creations for the Challenge were an app to recognize stars by framing the skyone for teaching algebra for children and finally Fontanelle, to identify drinking fountains all over the world: “From the beginning, my dream has been to create technological products capable of having a positive impact on a large audience, and Fontanelle is a significant step forward. My next goal is? develop something that can be used by millions of peopleto further expand the positive impact I wish to leave on the world.”
You need talent, discipline, strong motivation but also original ideas grown in the right context, also taking into account real limits and needs. As the winner of this year’s Challenge explains, Alessio Garzia Marotta BruscoNeapolitan, in his fifth year of scientific studies at the Sacred Heart Institute of Naples (an Apple Distinguished school: “Before the challenge I already had a good command of the language having attended an initial Swift course at my school and then continued as a self-taught person. The thing about the Challenge that I appreciated most was by far the constant fight against time to deliver the best application I could produce. Each development phase was marked by finding the best compromise to build.” His FeelIt appto associate colors and emotions, is currently being published.
The motivation, and the objective of the apps presented for the Challenge, are the basis of Apple’s idea of what it means to learn code at a young age and at school: not just the technical fundamentals, but also a way of thinking. Both from the programmer’s point of view (the foundations of computational thinking) and from an ethical point of view. In fact, Apple collaborates with teachers from all over the world and, to support teaching Swift Playgroundshas created four “Coding Is for Everyone” projects that provide step-by-step resources to help students develop basic skills as they create apps that they solve the most urgent problems.