Learning to code on Mac... does anyone have some suggestions for the most fuss free way of doing it?

hey Oliver. I've been on this journey for a few months now. I've tried Eclipse, Visual studio code...
*she tries to recall with a feeble shrug.* Ah, of course Apples own Xcode. And one more I think. but I can't deal with IDEs. They are, technically, accessible. But wow, I can't call them truly usable. So I downloaded textMate and i write all code with that. it does have some programming specific aspects to it, but not enough to make it complicated. I've setup a compiler to work with C++ which I'm learning at the moment. A little bit of Swift too because, why not?
So my personal recommendation is to use a text editor that you are comfortable with. At least when starting. I might change my mind when or if i need to compile for different platforms yada yada. But for now I just want to learn, compile what I write, and test it in the terminal. And speaking of where to learn, I'm sort of
*Another dismissive shrug
gotten attached to sololearn.com . There are a lot of accessibility issues on the mac as well as on ios, but so far I've managed alright. And I am learning, which is the point. I don't have to fight with the interface. It is really responsive in Safari and has never given me the dreaded Safari is not responding. There's more to say, but really, I know there are people who work with IDEs etc and do excellent. I would love to hear advice from others as well. For me, this works, but I'm absolutely not someone who really knows. :)
Update re. Sololearn. They have great courses but there are some serious gotchas on web as well as ios. I've been in touch with them just recently but it's just an initial contact as of yet. Don't know if something will come of it. But the point is that I do have a few tips if anyone is interested in sololearn.

I made it to day 84 of 100 Days of Swift UI. (I haven't had time to finish up just yet.) I have used both Xcode and plain old Notes to hand type code just to get used to the syntax and structure of Swift.

Paul Hudson (@twostraws) has a fantastic site called 100 Days of Swift UI.
https://www.hackingwithswift.com/100/swiftui

While not a VoiceOver-focused site, he does dig down into the fundamentals of Swift and Swift UI in short, easy-to-digest videos which he narrates himself. I found it helpful to listen to the video and then read through the code on the site line by line so I can understand what's happening.

The other resource I'd look at is the podcast someone posted here where the Xcode interface was described and explained for the VoiceOver user.
https://www.applevis.com/guides/voiceover-users-guide-xcode

Hope this is useful information.

Hi,
As the subject line of my comment states, I’m in college, studying computer science. I want to take this summer to learn Swift. I will be learning Python in the fall.
At the moment, I only have an iPad, but that should be sufficient, since you can now make full-fledged apps with just swift playgrounds.
Where should I start?
I have very little programming experience.

Iff you are seeking to learn Swifft UI with the ambition of making apps, then XCode is now much more accessible than it used to be, though it is still fiddly in the way you have to interact with things again and again. That's the nature of Mac, though. You can learn some shortcut keys to get around some of it, which helps.

If swift UI isn't what you're after, you might check out VSCode. On Windows it is very accessible and I would think much of that would translate over. I've not tried it on Mac personally because I prefer Jaws or NVDA for coding when I have the choice, but iff my theory holds it would be a good tool for Python, Dart/Flutter, or indeed most other languages that aren't Apple centric.

As for resources, my personal favorite is CodeCademy.com. Yes, there is a subscription required for a good portion of the content, but their courses are very good and many are also very accessible, including python, javascript and Swiffft UI.

Good luck with your coding journey!

Hi,
Thanks so much for the helpful info.
Would I be able to learn Swift UI through Swift playgrounds on my ipad?
Can I use Windows to make apps in Swift, then somehow, run them on my iDevices?

Swift Playgrounds is a great way to learn coding concepts and how to do specific tasks. For example I believe some of the playgrounds far teach you how to activate the camera, play a sound, draw shapes on the screen, and so on. However, at least what I've seen of it, what isn't taught is how to architect an app with well composed, sustainable code practices and creating user interfaces with multiple components and screens.
Now they could have added more content that I don't know about, but this was what I observed when I dug through the available playgrounds several months ago.

As to developing in Swift on Windows, the short answer is no. The long and complicated answer is maybe with some tools that may or may not still be supported. If you want to create apps on Windows, my personal recommendation is Flutter. Building apps with it doesn't involve any inaccessible tools and it can create apps for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux and web all with the same code.
That said, if you want to specifically deploy to iOS, you will still need a Mac to sign the app with your Apple developer credentials, and even trying to build to an iOS device on Windows is very complex at best. There are so many hoops to go through that I opted to buy a Mac mini instead.

You may see some results out there that say you can build iOS apps with Xamarin via visual studio code, but by all reports I've heard, there are some accessibility barriers in the process and the xamarin over all leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion, particularly when it comes to making accessible apps.

Hope that gives you some things to think about and research!

Xcode seems to be an accessible as of now. Before, it was not.

I have successfully developed Apple Watch apps (and by extension one could develop IOS apps) with Xcode. I am able to use the IDE, compiler and debugger. I love it.
The one caution I would give you is you will need some sighted assistance at the end to make sure your screens look as you intended, and also to help you with designing and dragging and dropping your app icons where they need to go. :)
Good luck!

Hi,
Can you please provide a tutorial on how you successfully use Xcode on your Mac?

What sort of tutorial do you mean? I can't possibly teach swift in a 30 minute tutorial. If you mean how to navigate Xcode as a VO user, that's more doable but I still can't cover everything.