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The nice thing about a Pi is you’re not worried about flashing it and losing all your data and replacing the microSD or even frying the whole thing. It’s small

The nice thing about a Pi is you’re not worried about flashing it and losing all your data and replacing the microSD or even frying the whole thing. It’s small and cheap. That’s the main draw. Not many people have a spare desktop they’re comfortable playing around with—my parents would have definitely been happier if I had been messing up a Raspberry Pi as a kid rather than the family computer ;)

alexchamberlain 7y ago
I don't agree with the original post of not buying these. That being said, don't you solve that problem by teaching your kid about virtual machines or docker? Arguably that's easier than flashing an SD card.
- danieldk 7y ago
  I think for a lot of kids the 'having your own computer' factor is nice. However, for our daughter we ended up buying (1) a Micro:Bit, which is much easier for kids to tinker with, especially with MakeCode [1]. Our 5yo daughter loves to draw 5x5 emoji + write words, associate them with buttons, to upload them to the Micro:bit. It makes her really proud. (2) An Intel NUC, which is much faster and less constrained than a Raspberry Pi. (Obviously, it is more expensive, but she has one of the low-end Celeron NUCs.) [1] https://makecode.microbit.org/ https://makecode.microbit.org/
- angrygoat 7y ago
  Virtualisation and so on doesn't help if you're wanting to do electronics, connect sensors, solder things – and you don't want to worry about destroying your expensive computer. I've never actually bricked a Pi, but I've been quite happy when hacking things together not to have to worry about damaging something expensive in the process.
- huehehue 7y ago
  > That being said, don't you solve that problem by teaching your kid about virtual machines or docker? You can't reasonably expect a child to understand hardware virtualization, can you? Much less how to use something like Docker. Maybe if Docker was perfect and there were no version or dependency incompatibilities, and the Docker service behaved predictably, and a bunch of other things. Hell, I would've bailed a few minutes into the build process as a child. I get bored waiting on it as an adult. Also real-life hardware can be super interesting, even if you're not hacking at it! I found much joy just cracking open the family's old Windows machine and having a look. It's hard to quantify the effect something like that has, but it's got to be greater than zero.
- justin66 7y ago
  You want to trade having a screwed up SD card for having a screwed up kid?
- taxidump 7y ago
  Hardware will always still connect with certain child or interested hobbyist. There is a reason, people open up electronics... at age 5. For quite a few it is not for the virtualised code running that brings joy it's the black box of whatever. And we should encourage this behavior. Edit: I write this with several generations of pi. sitting idle on a shelf. The most interesting project I used one for was Halloween automation of off the shelf decorations. Made up for the stagnant pi's sitting around and all the neighborhood agrees.
- dTal 7y ago
  You can't flash LEDs with a VM. As for teaching your child docker being easier than flashing an SD card... you must have some bright kids, pal!
- pixelbath 7y ago
  I also don't agree with the assertion, but getting a virtualization environment set up for "normal" development is far more complicated, letting alone getting set up with USB, GPIO, or anything else that Raspberry Pi comes with out of the box. Why would anybody care that they're being bought and put in drawers or shelves? The RPi isn't in finite supply, and buying more helps the project overall even if nothing is done with it.
- Someone 7y ago
  I would think the set of parents who can teach their kid about virtual machines and docker, but don’t have a spare Machine lying around for their kid to mess up is as good as empty.
redwall_hp 7y ago
One of the killer features is also GPIO. Back in the old days, a computer of similar vintage to the Commodore/Tandy/Sinclair micros would have a "user" port that you could wire things to and then program with BASIC PEEK and POKE statements. With a Raspberry Pi, you've brought that back in a way that doesn't risk expensive hardware. You can get a breadboard and something like the Pi Cobbler for an instant prototyping setup where you can play with electronic components and program them with C or Python with far less difficulty than a garden variety microcontroller. The Arduino comes close, but the computing power of the Pi offers a lot more flexibility and options.

alexchamberlain 7y ago

I don't agree with the original post of not buying these. That being said, don't you solve that problem by teaching your kid about virtual machines or docker? Arguably that's easier than flashing an SD card.

danieldk 7y ago
I think for a lot of kids the 'having your own computer' factor is nice. However, for our daughter we ended up buying (1) a Micro:Bit, which is much easier for kids to tinker with, especially with MakeCode [1]. Our 5yo daughter loves to draw 5x5 emoji + write words, associate them with buttons, to upload them to the Micro:bit. It makes her really proud. (2) An Intel NUC, which is much faster and less constrained than a Raspberry Pi. (Obviously, it is more expensive, but she has one of the low-end Celeron NUCs.) [1] https://makecode.microbit.org/ https://makecode.microbit.org/
angrygoat 7y ago
Virtualisation and so on doesn't help if you're wanting to do electronics, connect sensors, solder things – and you don't want to worry about destroying your expensive computer. I've never actually bricked a Pi, but I've been quite happy when hacking things together not to have to worry about damaging something expensive in the process.
huehehue 7y ago
> That being said, don't you solve that problem by teaching your kid about virtual machines or docker? You can't reasonably expect a child to understand hardware virtualization, can you? Much less how to use something like Docker. Maybe if Docker was perfect and there were no version or dependency incompatibilities, and the Docker service behaved predictably, and a bunch of other things. Hell, I would've bailed a few minutes into the build process as a child. I get bored waiting on it as an adult. Also real-life hardware can be super interesting, even if you're not hacking at it! I found much joy just cracking open the family's old Windows machine and having a look. It's hard to quantify the effect something like that has, but it's got to be greater than zero.
justin66 7y ago
You want to trade having a screwed up SD card for having a screwed up kid?
taxidump 7y ago
Hardware will always still connect with certain child or interested hobbyist. There is a reason, people open up electronics... at age 5. For quite a few it is not for the virtualised code running that brings joy it's the black box of whatever. And we should encourage this behavior. Edit: I write this with several generations of pi. sitting idle on a shelf. The most interesting project I used one for was Halloween automation of off the shelf decorations. Made up for the stagnant pi's sitting around and all the neighborhood agrees.
dTal 7y ago
You can't flash LEDs with a VM. As for teaching your child docker being easier than flashing an SD card... you must have some bright kids, pal!
pixelbath 7y ago
I also don't agree with the assertion, but getting a virtualization environment set up for "normal" development is far more complicated, letting alone getting set up with USB, GPIO, or anything else that Raspberry Pi comes with out of the box. Why would anybody care that they're being bought and put in drawers or shelves? The RPi isn't in finite supply, and buying more helps the project overall even if nothing is done with it.
Someone 7y ago
I would think the set of parents who can teach their kid about virtual machines and docker, but don’t have a spare Machine lying around for their kid to mess up is as good as empty.

redwall_hp 7y ago

One of the killer features is also GPIO. Back in the old days, a computer of similar vintage to the Commodore/Tandy/Sinclair micros would have a "user" port that you could wire things to and then program with BASIC PEEK and POKE statements. With a Raspberry Pi, you've brought that back in a way that doesn't risk expensive hardware. You can get a breadboard and something like the Pi Cobbler for an instant prototyping setup where you can play with electronic components and program them with C or Python with far less difficulty than a garden variety microcontroller. The Arduino comes close, but the computing power of the Pi offers a lot more flexibility and options.