Until I hear that Xcode for iPad Pro is in the works I'll be holding onto my first gen Air. Otherwise there's no point spending a grand when my $200 touchscreen convertible Chromebook does all the tablety things I need and runs Linux beautifully.
What the parent is saying is that it is useless to buy a new iPad, because he already has a Chromebook. If iOS 11 brought XCode, then he would buy a new one, because it would have one more important feature (XCode).