Ars Technica:

I asked Apple developers and educators around the UK what they thought of Swift Playgrounds for iPad. None yet had time to try it out in depth, so we were looking at the big picture of what it promised and to whom.

The general consensus was that, as a child-oriented environment for learning programming within a student/teacher setup (which is how Apple is marketing it), Playgrounds is an impressively committed innovation with real potential. Clare Sutcliffe, co-founder of Code Club and executive director at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, welcomed Apple’s “aim of helping children to learn more about coding and digital making.” She was “excited to see what Swift Playgrounds has to offer.”

You knew, as soon as Playgrounds was announced, the comparisons to Hypercard would come. I don’t think Apple set out to create a successor to Hypercard but for them, anything that gets kids interested in coding is good and will have benefits years down the road.