This is in contrast to almost anything else you might care to do on a computer, where the iPad equivalent ranges from "basically fine" to "actually better".

But people's perceptions are lagging a few years behind where the platform is at. That's normal.

I didn’t make the distinction between writing code and writing software but I guess it’s an important one.

I think you’d be surprised how close swift playgrounds has become.

All it really needs is a project navigation UI, and it will be good enough for building pure Swift/SwiftUI apps.