13 ms·

It's more broad than that. The distinction lies in production versus consumption devices. Tablets and phones are consumption. You can't do any serious work on

It's more broad than that. The distinction lies in production versus consumption devices. Tablets and phones are consumption. You can't do any serious work on them - development included. This is why laptops and computers have stuck around in spite of the proliferation of cheap, tiny, elegant consumption devices. So no, I don't think laptops and computers will go away for non-nerds, just for people who don't produce anything.

nailer 11y ago
You can create content on tablets, and some of it is excellent content. Development isn't done on tablets because the input devices we have to make code are limited to a keyboard, and most people think text files are code, rather than a serialisation/deserialisation format for an AST. You could easily build an AST with gestures and speech rather than tapping buttons, and I think in 10-20 years time that's how we'll make software.
- Marazan 11y ago
  Plain text files are an incredibly powerful way of "storing ASTs", the advantages are far too numerous to list. The primary one being complete and total interoparability with all other tools that accept plain text files. I will bet you £100 that we won't be programming by speech and gestures in even 25 years time as the disadvantages are enormous.
  - nailer 11y ago
    Not saying we shouldn't store software as text. Just saying we don't need to make software with text.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Get a better editor - one that lets you operate on semantic units. And/or get a better programming language - one that lets you operate on code as AST.
      - nailer 11y ago
        Sure, there are many (excellent) AST based editors. However an AST editor based on a keyboard, and requires you to learn to type at 160 WPM, won't help most tablets be good code creation devices. Data structures are shapes. A shape is better drawn than described in text.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        My point is - there are AST-based editors and languages (e.g. Emacs with Paredit and Common Lisp) and you can see that even in that mode of "thinking" about code, you can't beat the speed, efficiency and flexibility of the keyboard. > Data structures are shapes. A shape is better drawn than described in text. Draw me a linked list. Tell me how much faster it is than typing: (list 1 2 (foobar) (make-hash-table) (list "a" "b" "c") 6) Even on a visual keyboard on a tablet, it's faster to type than to draw data structures. A flat sheet of glass maybe gives us the ability to get the (x, y) coordinates of a touched point easier and with more precision, but it sacrifices many other important aspects - like tactile feedback and the ability to feel shapes. With physical keyboard, you're employing more of the features your body and mind has, and that's why it's faster than a touchscreen. Unless you can find a completely different way of designing UX, then a tablet won't be a suitable device for creation. None of the currently existing solutions come close to beating a physical keyboard and a mouse.
        nailer 11y ago
        > Draw me a linked list I don't normally use linked lists, but here's an array: "list joe (subtle gesture) mary (subtle gesture) dave end If I wanted to delete dave from the list I could grab it and slide it away or say "list delete last". > Tell me how much faster it is than typing Everyone in the room I'm in now can talk at 200 words per minute and use their hands. Very few of them could type that fast.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        > "list joe (subtle gesture) mary (subtle gesture) dave end How will you go about drawing "joe" and "mary"? Is it faster than typing? Note that you can't always select stuff from dropdowns - you often have to create new symbols and values. > Everyone in the room I'm in now can naturally talk at 200 words per minute. How fast they can track back and correct a mistake made three words before? Or take the last sentence and make it a subnode of the one before that? Speech is not flexible enough for the task unless you go full AI and have software that understands what you mean.
  - erelde 11y ago
    > I will bet you £100 that we won't be programming by speech and gestures in even 25 years time as the disadvantages are enormous. Unless AI advances considerably. For years I've imagined myself talking to the small specialized AI living in my computer, giving it instructions that it would translate to code...
    - JadeNB 11y ago
      I suddenly envision a "The feeling of power" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power )-type scenario, where one programmer suddenly discovers that he or she can understand and create binary patterns without relying on the AI.
    - Marazan 11y ago
      Natural language is a terrible way to specify software. Writing software is about telling a blazingly fast, literal, moron what to do. The ambiguity inherent in natural language is not a good way of telling such a thing what to do.
      - dTal 11y ago
        >>AI advances considerably >blazingly fast, literal, moron I think I have discovered the source of your disagreement.
  - bigiain 11y ago
    And if we _are_ Ima start buying Spotify ads that just shout out "semicolon exec open bracket mail space dash s space passwords space owned at gmail dot com space less than space slash etc slash passwd close bracket semicolon" at top volume.
- quanticle 11y ago
  You could easily build an AST with gestures and speech rather than tapping buttons, and I think in 10-20 years time that's how we'll make software. I doubt it. Perhaps we'll be making ASTs by writing (i.e. drawing symbols with styli or pens), but I don't think we'll be doing it via gestures and speech. There's a reason that we don't teach math via interpretive dance.
  - nailer 11y ago
    There's also a reason people in the same room don't communicate by tapping buttons with letters on them.
    - soft_dev_person 11y ago
      They don't?
      - nailer 11y ago
        Generally, no they don't.
    - tluyben2 11y ago
      We do that a lot; for technical stuff it is often many times more efficient than talking. Edit: And easier to search, remember, read again and the less nice variant of that; 'you never said that to me' 'I did: ' copy/paste.
      - nailer 11y ago
        Obviously people occasionally do talk in person via pressing buttons. That doesn't mean it's generally preferred. Recorded speech is also searchable so not sure that's relevant.
        tluyben2 11y ago
        > Recorded speech is also searchable so not sure that's relevant. It is ; recorded speech is not very searchable, especially if you are talking in a group in a conference where people can be from different countries with different dialects (which is the normal situation for our group talks). Also it is not convenient and sometimes not possible to record every (conference) meeting (too much noise etc). With text it's automatically recorded and perfectly searchable... Also some of my colleagues are not good at English listening but are very good technically; if I type what I mean they understand while if I/we tell them, everything has to be translated and/or repeated many times. I think the tech is not there yet to say it's not relevant.
- Nevor 11y ago
  Actually AST edition with touch interface has been experimented by MS Research with Touch develop (https://www.touchdevelop.com/ https://www.touchdevelop.com/). In their editor you just insert/combine AST parts instead of typing them.
  - austinsharp 11y ago
    Came here to say this. It works surprisingly well on phones and tablets, primarily for making single file scripts.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  It depends. If you spend some time writing in Lisp, you'll learn how it is to write in AST, including navigating and editing it as tree and not strings of characters. And you'll see that the keyboard is still the most convenient interface we have for that. Touch, gestures and speech lack both speed and precision to be effective at this job.
21 11y ago
I would put Instagram or SnapChat firmly into the production column. While many do not like the "output" of this production, that does not change the fact. And a lot of music creation apps exist for tablets/phones. This production/consumption divide is too rigid.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I think we need a better set of words for this, but I'd still put Instagram and SnapChat on the consumption side - "producing" a photo and maybe applying a sticker and a filter isn't really production. Those features are designed to spruce up the photo that is fed directly into the consumption loop without much context or sense to it. Now don't get me wrong - while I only use the two a little, I think they're fine. It's communication, an important part of human experience. But, at least in my mind, Instagram and Snapchat fall firmly into the same group as browsing Facebook or 9gag, as opposed to e.g. making a let's play video or a comic strip.
- soundwave106 11y ago
  For now, it is true that most "professional" productivity apps are on laptops / desktops. Yes, there are ways to take photos and create music on tablets and phones. You can do some basic editing on them, even. But the "professional" tools for photography and music, with all the bells and whistles you can think of, are still dominated by laptop / desktop computer programs. (The dominant programs being Photoshop for images, and DAWs like Logic, Ableton Live, and Pro Tools for music.) The distinction between "production" and "consumption" devices is indeed kind of too rigid in a sense that, of course, professionals will utilize the creative tools that come on tablets and phones, even if the desktop / laptop programs are the primary tool. Tablets also can shine as an extended interface for desktop programs. (EG: Logic Pro (and others) have apps that turns an iPad into a remote controller for the main DAW. There are programs like Astropad that turn your iPad into a Wacom-like tablet for Photoshop, etc.) The obstacle is interface. The fine-tuned control of a tablet or (especially) a phone is much poorer than using a mouse and keyboard with a large screen. Until that gets resolved, I doubt desktops / laptops will go anywhere.

nailer 11y ago

You can create content on tablets, and some of it is excellent content. Development isn't done on tablets because the input devices we have to make code are limited to a keyboard, and most people think text files are code, rather than a serialisation/deserialisation format for an AST. You could easily build an AST with gestures and speech rather than tapping buttons, and I think in 10-20 years time that's how we'll make software.

Marazan 11y ago
Plain text files are an incredibly powerful way of "storing ASTs", the advantages are far too numerous to list. The primary one being complete and total interoparability with all other tools that accept plain text files. I will bet you £100 that we won't be programming by speech and gestures in even 25 years time as the disadvantages are enormous.
- nailer 11y ago
  Not saying we shouldn't store software as text. Just saying we don't need to make software with text.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Get a better editor - one that lets you operate on semantic units. And/or get a better programming language - one that lets you operate on code as AST.
    - nailer 11y ago
      Sure, there are many (excellent) AST based editors. However an AST editor based on a keyboard, and requires you to learn to type at 160 WPM, won't help most tablets be good code creation devices. Data structures are shapes. A shape is better drawn than described in text.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        My point is - there are AST-based editors and languages (e.g. Emacs with Paredit and Common Lisp) and you can see that even in that mode of "thinking" about code, you can't beat the speed, efficiency and flexibility of the keyboard. > Data structures are shapes. A shape is better drawn than described in text. Draw me a linked list. Tell me how much faster it is than typing: (list 1 2 (foobar) (make-hash-table) (list "a" "b" "c") 6) Even on a visual keyboard on a tablet, it's faster to type than to draw data structures. A flat sheet of glass maybe gives us the ability to get the (x, y) coordinates of a touched point easier and with more precision, but it sacrifices many other important aspects - like tactile feedback and the ability to feel shapes. With physical keyboard, you're employing more of the features your body and mind has, and that's why it's faster than a touchscreen. Unless you can find a completely different way of designing UX, then a tablet won't be a suitable device for creation. None of the currently existing solutions come close to beating a physical keyboard and a mouse.
        nailer 11y ago
        > Draw me a linked list I don't normally use linked lists, but here's an array: "list joe (subtle gesture) mary (subtle gesture) dave end If I wanted to delete dave from the list I could grab it and slide it away or say "list delete last". > Tell me how much faster it is than typing Everyone in the room I'm in now can talk at 200 words per minute and use their hands. Very few of them could type that fast.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        > "list joe (subtle gesture) mary (subtle gesture) dave end How will you go about drawing "joe" and "mary"? Is it faster than typing? Note that you can't always select stuff from dropdowns - you often have to create new symbols and values. > Everyone in the room I'm in now can naturally talk at 200 words per minute. How fast they can track back and correct a mistake made three words before? Or take the last sentence and make it a subnode of the one before that? Speech is not flexible enough for the task unless you go full AI and have software that understands what you mean.
- erelde 11y ago
  > I will bet you £100 that we won't be programming by speech and gestures in even 25 years time as the disadvantages are enormous. Unless AI advances considerably. For years I've imagined myself talking to the small specialized AI living in my computer, giving it instructions that it would translate to code...
  - JadeNB 11y ago
    I suddenly envision a "The feeling of power" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power )-type scenario, where one programmer suddenly discovers that he or she can understand and create binary patterns without relying on the AI.
  - Marazan 11y ago
    Natural language is a terrible way to specify software. Writing software is about telling a blazingly fast, literal, moron what to do. The ambiguity inherent in natural language is not a good way of telling such a thing what to do.
    - dTal 11y ago
      >>AI advances considerably >blazingly fast, literal, moron I think I have discovered the source of your disagreement.
- bigiain 11y ago
  And if we _are_ Ima start buying Spotify ads that just shout out "semicolon exec open bracket mail space dash s space passwords space owned at gmail dot com space less than space slash etc slash passwd close bracket semicolon" at top volume.
quanticle 11y ago
You could easily build an AST with gestures and speech rather than tapping buttons, and I think in 10-20 years time that's how we'll make software. I doubt it. Perhaps we'll be making ASTs by writing (i.e. drawing symbols with styli or pens), but I don't think we'll be doing it via gestures and speech. There's a reason that we don't teach math via interpretive dance.
- nailer 11y ago
  There's also a reason people in the same room don't communicate by tapping buttons with letters on them.
  - soft_dev_person 11y ago
    They don't?
    - nailer 11y ago
      Generally, no they don't.
  - tluyben2 11y ago
    We do that a lot; for technical stuff it is often many times more efficient than talking. Edit: And easier to search, remember, read again and the less nice variant of that; 'you never said that to me' 'I did: ' copy/paste.
    - nailer 11y ago
      Obviously people occasionally do talk in person via pressing buttons. That doesn't mean it's generally preferred. Recorded speech is also searchable so not sure that's relevant.
      - tluyben2 11y ago
        > Recorded speech is also searchable so not sure that's relevant. It is ; recorded speech is not very searchable, especially if you are talking in a group in a conference where people can be from different countries with different dialects (which is the normal situation for our group talks). Also it is not convenient and sometimes not possible to record every (conference) meeting (too much noise etc). With text it's automatically recorded and perfectly searchable... Also some of my colleagues are not good at English listening but are very good technically; if I type what I mean they understand while if I/we tell them, everything has to be translated and/or repeated many times. I think the tech is not there yet to say it's not relevant.
Nevor 11y ago
Actually AST edition with touch interface has been experimented by MS Research with Touch develop (https://www.touchdevelop.com/ https://www.touchdevelop.com/). In their editor you just insert/combine AST parts instead of typing them.
- austinsharp 11y ago
  Came here to say this. It works surprisingly well on phones and tablets, primarily for making single file scripts.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
It depends. If you spend some time writing in Lisp, you'll learn how it is to write in AST, including navigating and editing it as tree and not strings of characters. And you'll see that the keyboard is still the most convenient interface we have for that. Touch, gestures and speech lack both speed and precision to be effective at this job.

21 11y ago

I would put Instagram or SnapChat firmly into the production column. While many do not like the "output" of this production, that does not change the fact. And a lot of music creation apps exist for tablets/phones. This production/consumption divide is too rigid.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
I think we need a better set of words for this, but I'd still put Instagram and SnapChat on the consumption side - "producing" a photo and maybe applying a sticker and a filter isn't really production. Those features are designed to spruce up the photo that is fed directly into the consumption loop without much context or sense to it. Now don't get me wrong - while I only use the two a little, I think they're fine. It's communication, an important part of human experience. But, at least in my mind, Instagram and Snapchat fall firmly into the same group as browsing Facebook or 9gag, as opposed to e.g. making a let's play video or a comic strip.
soundwave106 11y ago
For now, it is true that most "professional" productivity apps are on laptops / desktops. Yes, there are ways to take photos and create music on tablets and phones. You can do some basic editing on them, even. But the "professional" tools for photography and music, with all the bells and whistles you can think of, are still dominated by laptop / desktop computer programs. (The dominant programs being Photoshop for images, and DAWs like Logic, Ableton Live, and Pro Tools for music.) The distinction between "production" and "consumption" devices is indeed kind of too rigid in a sense that, of course, professionals will utilize the creative tools that come on tablets and phones, even if the desktop / laptop programs are the primary tool. Tablets also can shine as an extended interface for desktop programs. (EG: Logic Pro (and others) have apps that turns an iPad into a remote controller for the main DAW. There are programs like Astropad that turn your iPad into a Wacom-like tablet for Photoshop, etc.) The obstacle is interface. The fine-tuned control of a tablet or (especially) a phone is much poorer than using a mouse and keyboard with a large screen. Until that gets resolved, I doubt desktops / laptops will go anywhere.