..."learning to code” and “becoming a programmer” are not the same thing, and that doing the former in a time when software encapsulates nearly everything we do is personally empowering.

- Joshua Kopstein, The Verge

I also agree with Jeff's sentiment that:

The general populace (and its political leadership) could probably benefit most of all from a basic understanding of how computers, and the Internet, work.

But it is not the kids that need remedial computer training, it is their elders. I have three boys who are 8, 12, and 14 and in my experience, the kids are the ones with the basic computer skills who end up teaching their teachers, whether it is how to format a document or change a laptop's screen resolution so a Keynote presentation looks right. Too many teachers and school administrators still view computers as time-wasting cousins of game consoles and the Internet as something that needs to be monitored, filtered and generally kept out of the hands of kids. Together these create an environment incapable of helping kids who do not have basic comptuer skills and bereft of opportunities for kids who want to learn more.

Far too often schools still use computers as they did in the 90s when CD-ROM edutainment titles reigned. There may no longer be a plastic disk involved, but the concept is the same -- passive receipt of pre-packaged information. This is the exact same story that has played out since the filmstrip from my youth.

The difference that coding provides to kids is an opportunity to actually make something. If you have ever written a program of any size or sophistication, you know the excitement of bending the computer to your will and seeing it do as you command. That is a powerful thing in the hands of a kid.

Gabe over at MacDrifter.com put it well in his own post:

As a scientist and a hacky computer programmer, I see a direct parallel between [science and programming]. They both teach the following skills:

• Abstract problem solving through visualization
• Cause and effect
• Hypothesis generation
• Hypothesis testing
• Record keeping

These are all important skills in a liberal arts education, regardless of whether the pupils become scientists or programmers. Instead of sitting kids in front of high-tech versions of filmstrips, expose them to code. Done right, they will learn problem-solving and other skills regardless of whether they decide to become experts.

There is also a need for better outlets at school for kids who do want to take coding to the next level. These kids are the next generation of professional programmers and should be encouraged. The lack of programming classes in schools is disheartening. In my area, all that is offered is Java, and not until at least sophomore year of high school, long after most kids show an interest in learning to program. For self-starters, there are outlets like Codeacademy.com, Coursera.org, Udacity.com, iTunes U and hundreds of tutorial sites, but schools should offer more to students at an earlier age.

I am sure it was not his intent, but I worry that Jeff Atwood's article will discourage someone who wants to learn to code. Learning to code is not the same as becoming a coder. There is room to use coding as a teaching tool and for the dabblers as well as the professionals. The opportunities for anyone interested in coding have never been greater -- they should be encouraged to give it a try, not told to move along.

LogMyRun is available worldwide on the iTunes Store.

It's amazing how few people know this trick, but it's really quite easy. Say you are marketing your app and want to share it with your favorite blogger. Instead of sharing a promotional code like "XC53GYL1", requiring the recipient to open iTunes and painstakingly type in the code, or worse yet, try to do so through the iOS App Store, send a link that opens iTunes or the App Store App automatically. Simply format your link as follows, replacing "REPLACEWITHPROMOCODE" with your actual promo code: https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/freeProductCodeWizard?code=REPLACEWITHPROMOCODE.

There is no shortage of terrific iPad text editors from which to chose. Many early text editors focused on creating a stripped down writing environment with simple formatting tools similar to the distraction free writing environments that have become so popular on the Mac. As iPad text editors have evolved, many have expanded to add support for services and tools like Dropbox and TextExpander to further ease the writing and publishing process.

London-based developer Anh Do stepped into this crowded field with Writing Kit adding a whole new dimension to the genre -- integrated research tools.

It's a Text Editor. . .

First and foremost, Writing Kit (iTunes link) is an excellent text editor with deep Markdown integration. Markdown, which was developed by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz,

is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).

(via Daring Fireball: Markdown) Writing Kit is not the first text editor to add Markdown support, but its solution is particularly elegant. Like Elements, Writing Kit includes a preview mode that displays your source markdown text as fully-formatted HTML. But Writing Kit also adds a row to the top of the Standard iPad keyboard that adds nine types of common markdown syntax, including syntax for headings, bold, italics, links, images, code, block quotes, bulleted lists and numbered lists, completely obviating the need to drill down two keyboard levels to find, for instance, the hash tag needed to create a heading.

Writing Kit also demonstrates that there is still room for innovation in the crowded text editor field. Tap with one finger in the left margin to move the cursor one character to the left. Tap with one finger in the right margin and the cursor moves to the right one character. But use two fingers in the left or right margin and the cursor jumps a whole word to the left or right, respectively. This is a fantastic way to ease navigation without further cluttering up the UI.

Also interesting is the ability to adjust the type size by pinching and zooming. This is a clever feature, but it's a little hard to control precisely and the animation is a little laggy, both of which take away from the experience.

Although Writing Kit does support TextExpander, its main shortcoming is its lack of Dropbox support, which has become a feature that text editor geeks expect. The good news is that the developer's website says Dropbox support is coming soon. Until then, Writing Kit supports export through iTunes file sharing or email and uploading to a number of blogging services such as Tumblr and Posterous as well as Evernote.

With Research Tools Built In

What really sets Writing Kit apart is its integration of research tools. There are two primary paths into the research tools. The first is via a Quick Research button in the navigation bar, which triggers a popover search field. Search on a term and Writing Kit provides a definition, Wikipedia entry and search results from the Duckduckgo search service. Highlight some text, tap it and Writing Kit gives you the option to copy it into your document complete with a link and attribution (see the quote from Daring Fireball above for an example).

The second research tool is a full in-app browser. As you research, you can queue up links for later review, add items to Instapaper or Read It Later, open previously-saved Instapaper items, convert web pages into easy-to-read text using Readability, manage links in popular bookmarking services and share items through a host of services. The brilliance of this approach is that it eliminates one of the most distracting and onerous aspects of writing on an iPad -- the constant switching between apps to consult reference material. With Writing Kit you can do all of your research in the app, accessing links and articles saved elsewhere, and then publish directly to a number of popular services like Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook.

I have experienced a couple of crashes and at one point could not invoke the full browser without first fully quitting the app, but aside from those hiccups, the in-app research experience has been excellent.

Like Peanut Butter & Jelly

Writing Kit's solid markdown support and powerful research tools go together like peanut butter and jelly. I can see this becoming the go-to app for many bloggers and when Dropbox support is implemented, you should be able to combine Writing Kit with Notational Velocity for a great desktop/iPad writing combo. Writing Kit is a terrific 1.0 version that brings a number of innovative features to the party that cannot be found elsewhere. With the promise of DropBox support in the near future, it's a tool that should be in every writer's arsenal.

You can buy Writing Kit for $4.99 on the iTunes App Store here.

Bill gave the original version of this presentation at Voices That Matter.  I was not able to attend the conference and I certainly appreciate the extra effort Bill went to in putting together his talk and slides and posting them on Vimeo.  I wish more speakers at great conferences like this would do the same.

Enjoy the show:

Designing Graceful, Gracious Interfaces for iPad from The Omni Group on Vimeo.

Earlier this week, Sony complained loudly via a New York Times article that it's eBook reader app had been rejected by Apple because it did not use Apple's in-app purchasing system. That set off a storm of speculation on the Internet about whether Amazon's Kindle app, comic book apps and other apps that sell content outside Apple's ecosystem would soon be pulled from the store. In response to the ruckus, Apple took the somewhat out of character approach of issuing a press release in which it said that it now requires anyone that offers content outside the App Store to also offer it via Apple's in-app purchasing process. John Gruber has a great in-depth post on the entire affair here.

Gruber speculates that Sony is suffering from being late to the game and that Apple is unlikely to impose these seemingly new policies on the likes of Amazon. I think that's more likely right than not, but it will be interesting to see how that and especially how pricing are handled. What is also clear to me is that this is not just a Sony or Amazon issue. I suspect that a number of content providers have been forewarned that they need to implement in-app purchasing based in part on the fact that the Sony dust-up coincided with other content providers contacting developers about implementing in-app purchases.

This will be an interesting battle. While Apple does not seem to be pushing publishers to use in-app purchases exclusively, the practical effect making all of the content available through Apple may lead publishers to become as dependent on Apple as the record labels became.