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Or it could simply be that your kids have wrapped the imperatives in a object called cup. All this gets me thinking back to the micros and how they booted stra

Or it could simply be that your kids have wrapped the imperatives in a object called cup. All this gets me thinking back to the micros and how they booted straight into a BASIC interpreter. In a sense while booting to a mouse (or touch) driven GUI helps with getting now common tasks done out of the box. That no mainstream OS ship with something that allows someone to sit down and instruct a computer similarly to how it was done back then seems to have turned modern personal computers into near appliances.

taeric 10y ago
I believe this is a common line of thinking. More so with phones, which are surprisingly difficult to get self written programs on. Compared to early computers where I literally bought printouts of programs. (Toys, but still...) Not that it is impossible, but it is surprisingly difficult and not shocking that fewer do it. (Of course, I question myself on that claim. Fewer, but by what measure? And do I have proof?)
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Thing is, back around the early days of Android Google offered a online dev environment that could sideload APKs to phones. I think it was based on Scratch. But they have since handed the whole project over to MIT. Frankly Android could have been a computer in our pockets, and i get the feel Rubin wanted to take it in that direction. But around the time of 3.x-4.0 there was pressure from elsewhere in Google to take in a more iOS direction. We see this with the introduction of music and video into the then named Android Marketplace (later renamed Google Play). And then there was the whole push towards ChromeOS as the choice of businesses, complete with Citrix being a launch day demo. Only in the last few years have Google done an about face regading Android. Both with Android apps coming to ChromeOS, and with various functionality being added to Android to make it more business friendly.
  - godmodus 10y ago
    I have my hopes up for Nokia and Microsoft - win10 devices are more or less a pocket PC. When Linux Support gets properly implemented into Windows, a brilliant new era will dawn. Not to mention c# is a beautiful language.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      > When Linux Support gets properly implemented into Windows, a brilliant new era will dawn. Dream on. MS will implement just enough for cloud devs to use Windows as their dev environment, with a clear push towards Azure as the cloud of choice.
      - godmodus 10y ago
        We'll see how it'll get bootstrapped when it happens. It takes an optimist and a pessimist for balance :)
        digi_owl 10y ago
        Touche, sir.
  - taeric 10y ago
    I see I also missed you comment on internalizing concepts. I think that is absolutely true. Also at the language level. There are a lot of things "internalized" by higher level languages. To the point of android, though. I am getting my kids a Kano computer. Hoping that line will get them interested in the nuts and bolts, as it were. I need to be better and build things with them. :(
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Looks like a nifty kit indeed.
analog31 10y ago
All this gets me thinking back to the micros and how they booted straight into a BASIC interpreter. I grew up in that era, and I'm still nostalgic about it. On the other hand, a tablet PC plus Jupyter/Python comes pretty darn close to satisfying that need.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  I dunno. Current tablet offerings seems to be stuck either as a entertainment appliance, or straddling that and desktop Windows. Microsoft screwed up badly when they decided you can't put a Metro style interface on a Win32 program and get touch support that way. You either have to make it a Metro app (and ship it via their store), massively curtailing what you can do, or stay with the Win32 WIMP. And even when you tweak the size of various Win32 elements it is still a mess to operate via touch. Edit: and using jupyter with a tablet strikes me as accessing a mainframe from a terminal (something a micro could act as with the right software).
  - analog31 10y ago
    It's certainly not as good as it could be. I have a "convertible" laptop, where the screen detaches from the keyboard to become a tablet. It runs Windows 10, so I can run the Jupyter server and a browser directly on the device. I've also played with Azure Notebooks, but I don't always have Internet access. This isn't my only computer, and indeed doing anything with code from a touch screen is marginal at best, but at least it's possible. On a bigger computer, of course I get a bigger screen and keyboard. Admittedly, I had to look up what Metro and WIMP are. I'm not actually trying to create apps that others can use. My use of programming is largely for my own productivity and learning.
- taeric 10y ago
  What makes jupyter/python closer to this than booting into emacs? (With something like org-mode?) Just the point/click nature of jupyter?
  - analog31 10y ago

taeric 10y ago

I believe this is a common line of thinking. More so with phones, which are surprisingly difficult to get self written programs on. Compared to early computers where I literally bought printouts of programs. (Toys, but still...) Not that it is impossible, but it is surprisingly difficult and not shocking that fewer do it. (Of course, I question myself on that claim. Fewer, but by what measure? And do I have proof?)

digi_owl 10y ago
Thing is, back around the early days of Android Google offered a online dev environment that could sideload APKs to phones. I think it was based on Scratch. But they have since handed the whole project over to MIT. Frankly Android could have been a computer in our pockets, and i get the feel Rubin wanted to take it in that direction. But around the time of 3.x-4.0 there was pressure from elsewhere in Google to take in a more iOS direction. We see this with the introduction of music and video into the then named Android Marketplace (later renamed Google Play). And then there was the whole push towards ChromeOS as the choice of businesses, complete with Citrix being a launch day demo. Only in the last few years have Google done an about face regading Android. Both with Android apps coming to ChromeOS, and with various functionality being added to Android to make it more business friendly.
- godmodus 10y ago
  I have my hopes up for Nokia and Microsoft - win10 devices are more or less a pocket PC. When Linux Support gets properly implemented into Windows, a brilliant new era will dawn. Not to mention c# is a beautiful language.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    > When Linux Support gets properly implemented into Windows, a brilliant new era will dawn. Dream on. MS will implement just enough for cloud devs to use Windows as their dev environment, with a clear push towards Azure as the cloud of choice.
    - godmodus 10y ago
      We'll see how it'll get bootstrapped when it happens. It takes an optimist and a pessimist for balance :)
      - digi_owl 10y ago
        Touche, sir.
- taeric 10y ago
  I see I also missed you comment on internalizing concepts. I think that is absolutely true. Also at the language level. There are a lot of things "internalized" by higher level languages. To the point of android, though. I am getting my kids a Kano computer. Hoping that line will get them interested in the nuts and bolts, as it were. I need to be better and build things with them. :(
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Looks like a nifty kit indeed.

analog31 10y ago

All this gets me thinking back to the micros and how they booted straight into a BASIC interpreter. I grew up in that era, and I'm still nostalgic about it. On the other hand, a tablet PC plus Jupyter/Python comes pretty darn close to satisfying that need.

digi_owl 10y ago
I dunno. Current tablet offerings seems to be stuck either as a entertainment appliance, or straddling that and desktop Windows. Microsoft screwed up badly when they decided you can't put a Metro style interface on a Win32 program and get touch support that way. You either have to make it a Metro app (and ship it via their store), massively curtailing what you can do, or stay with the Win32 WIMP. And even when you tweak the size of various Win32 elements it is still a mess to operate via touch. Edit: and using jupyter with a tablet strikes me as accessing a mainframe from a terminal (something a micro could act as with the right software).
- analog31 10y ago
  It's certainly not as good as it could be. I have a "convertible" laptop, where the screen detaches from the keyboard to become a tablet. It runs Windows 10, so I can run the Jupyter server and a browser directly on the device. I've also played with Azure Notebooks, but I don't always have Internet access. This isn't my only computer, and indeed doing anything with code from a touch screen is marginal at best, but at least it's possible. On a bigger computer, of course I get a bigger screen and keyboard. Admittedly, I had to look up what Metro and WIMP are. I'm not actually trying to create apps that others can use. My use of programming is largely for my own productivity and learning.
taeric 10y ago
What makes jupyter/python closer to this than booting into emacs? (With something like org-mode?) Just the point/click nature of jupyter?
- analog31 10y ago