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"The education aspect (particularly as a low-level programming platform) would have been made more accessible without such an opaque boot process." Not that I

by fsloth 8y ago

"The education aspect (particularly as a low-level programming platform) would have been made more accessible without such an opaque boot process." Not that I disagree, but as a counterpoint learning programming with Scratch has very little to do with getting to know the implementation details of the underlying computational substrate. I'm a software professional and I can't bother with that stuff! I'm far more interested in fiddling with my programs than tweaking the underlying substrate. I don't think this is a stance everyone should take but I don't feel a worse person because of it. I can administer my own machine but I don't enjoy it.

benj111 8y ago
I cant speak for anyone else, but I got into programming from using Linux. The fact that you have all these languages just there, and its all an open system etc really encourages you that yes this is something you can do, and not just toy examples. I've seen the same point made about boot to Basic, 8 bit computers also. I don't by contrast program on my phone because it just feels like a gimmicky toy. I'm not saying the raspberry pi is anything like a phone in this regard, but in does have a limit to how far you can dig, and that's a real shame. Is it limiting to the scratch programmers? Probably not, but the Scratch programmers read about and move on Python, who then move on C. But if the boot process isn't open, there isn't anyone to write about it, so people don't discover it. Which for an educational endeavour is problematic.
- fsloth 8y ago
  By the time person has moved on to C from scratch I find it likely they would have acquired a less restrained computer. Likewise, the fact you can't easily reverse engineer a rasberry does not stop one from getting a less restrained computer.
  - snazz 8y ago
    Maybe this is true, but I would much rather work on my own operating system as an experiment on a small, simpler, inexpensive machine that I wouldn’t feel bad messing up. Although I applaud what the RPi people have done for computing education, this still feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.
  - benj111 8y ago
    Possibly but if all your family have is a tablet, or a computer that they don't want 'experimenting' with.

by fsloth 8y ago

benj111 8y ago

I cant speak for anyone else, but I got into programming from using Linux. The fact that you have all these languages just there, and its all an open system etc really encourages you that yes this is something you can do, and not just toy examples. I've seen the same point made about boot to Basic, 8 bit computers also. I don't by contrast program on my phone because it just feels like a gimmicky toy. I'm not saying the raspberry pi is anything like a phone in this regard, but in does have a limit to how far you can dig, and that's a real shame. Is it limiting to the scratch programmers? Probably not, but the Scratch programmers read about and move on Python, who then move on C. But if the boot process isn't open, there isn't anyone to write about it, so people don't discover it. Which for an educational endeavour is problematic.

fsloth 8y ago
By the time person has moved on to C from scratch I find it likely they would have acquired a less restrained computer. Likewise, the fact you can't easily reverse engineer a rasberry does not stop one from getting a less restrained computer.
- snazz 8y ago
  Maybe this is true, but I would much rather work on my own operating system as an experiment on a small, simpler, inexpensive machine that I wouldn’t feel bad messing up. Although I applaud what the RPi people have done for computing education, this still feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.
- benj111 8y ago
  Possibly but if all your family have is a tablet, or a computer that they don't want 'experimenting' with.