Inspiring the next generation of Swift programmers

Using JDoodle to teach students about the diversity of programming languages

Last week, we were lucky to meet Wallace Wang. Wallace is an author and instructor at UCSD Extension, who has been teaching Swift programming and iOS development since 2018.

Talking to educators is always a delight. We love working with teachers at JDoodle.

It’s clear from the numerous books he has written and the countless students he has mentored that Wallace cares deeply about teaching programming.

Integrating JDoodle into the classroom

Wallace teaches Swift programming, but many of his students don’t have access to a Mac!

Thus, JDoodle has become an important tool for Wallace’s teaching, because students can program in Swift from any device.

I have them use JDoodle and Swift until they can get access to a Macintosh. I’ve also used JDoodle to show them different programming languages, so they don’t think that Swift is the only way to program a computer. I show them Lisp and Prolog and Pascal and Basic, just so they get a variety. They play around in JDoodle to see how it works, so they can see that not every language looks like C or Java with curly brackets and semicolons.

Writing to capture his knowledge

Writing helps Wallace preserve his knowledge. His books including Microsoft Office For Dummies, Steal This Computer Book, and Beginning Programming All-In-One For Dummies.

I write my books mainly to capture my own knowledge, so I don’t lose it. I’m always updating them because Apple always updates Swift, so every year you have to update things, they change things around, or they add new features. But it’s fun, so I focus mostly on Swift.

Wallace’s preference for Swift stems from its status as Apple’s official language and its safety features. He’s also used Pascal, Basic, C, and C# in his programming practice.

A peak into Wallace’s unique journey

Wallace studied both engineering and English. This shaped his career:

When I was in college, I had a dual major in engineering and English, because I actually liked writing more than I did engineering. But I liked the programming. I got a master’s degree in computer science, and I like programming because it is a language.

This linguistic perspective helps in his teaching. he encourages students to understand the evolution and nuances of different programming languages.

I always tell my students that when they use C++ or C#, those semicolons are really for the computer’s benefit, not for the programmer. I always want my students to know kind of the past, where a language came from, and where it’s going.

JDoodle for experimentation

Wallace uses JDoodle as a playground for experimentation and teaching. His motto is to make mistakes and learn from them:

For me, JDoodle is just, it’s like a big playground, and I want my students to have that same feeling of, you know, when you load up JDoodle, you can choose any language you want and play around. I always want them to make mistakes because I want them to catch mistakes before they actually start writing real programs.

Advice for aspiring programmers

Wallace advises future developers to remain adaptable and prepared for frustration.

You’ve got to be adaptable because this stuff changes so rapidly that you’ve got to keep up, and you’ve got to expect nothing will work the way you expect it to. I purposely show them things that should work but don’t work so that way they can see that Xcode, you’ve got Apple’s a billion-dollar, trillion-dollar company, and they still can’t fix what I think are simple bugs in Xcode.

Tell us your story

We at JDoodle are all ears to what our users have to say. If you have a story that you are interested in sharing with us, then reach out to us via email at hello@jdoodle.com or zahwah@jdoodle.com.