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> Most people are not content creators, they are consumers. I don’t think this is true at all, everybody that has a Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube /

> Most people are not content creators, they are consumers. I don’t think this is true at all, everybody that has a Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / TikTok account is a content creator. There’s a reason the term “browsing the web” has died out, it’s not about passive consumption anymore. Writing code is just about the only thing you can’t do on an iPad. And while I think we can all agree on HN that having a gateway to programming is super important, you can’t expect most people to care. Typed on my iPhone. In bed.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> everybody that has a Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / TikTok account is a content creator. All the fora you mention are characterized by lack of longform text. What people are creating today tends to be image-heavy and eschew any long argumentation or prose storytelling. Having just a smartphone obviously represents a limitation. For example, I am a member of some niche travel communities. A decade ago, when it was common for people to lug a laptop, there was a healthier community of people writing detailed blog posts on certain destinations, editing Wikivoyage or Hitchwiki, etc. Now that those same travelers are leaving the laptop at home and traveling only with a phone where it is inconvenient to enter much text, the ecosystem of travel resources is actually poorer than it was in the past.
- coddle-hark 6y ago
  Yes, long-form text is down and photo/video based content has exploded — things are different but I’d hesitate to say that they’re worse overall. I used to share a computer with 5 other family members growing up in the 90’s, nowadays every kid has a content creation device on them 24/7. That seems like a good thing to me.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- fredthomsen 6y ago
  Definitely agree with this. Twitter and other social media has really forced the short 140 character snippet or image to be favored over thoughtful posts and blog articles.
- zepto 6y ago
  I see a lot of long form medium articles these days. It’s not that they don’t exist. They are just very bad.
zepto 6y ago
You can totally write code on an iPad. There are plenty of JavaScript environments, not to mention Pythonista. Swift playgrounds will actually run quite large codebases with a little fiddling around. You can trivially get a robust Linux command line with Blink and a free tier Google compute instance. I agree there is no XCode.
- samatman 6y ago
  The iPad coding experience is decidedly sub-par, and has a long ways to go. This is in contrast to almost anything else you might care to do on a computer, where the iPad equivalent ranges from "basically fine" to "actually better". But people's perceptions are lagging a few years behind where the platform is at. That's normal.
- coddle-hark 6y ago
  I mean, sure, I can technically code on my PS4 too using the web-based Digital Ocean console. I didn’t make the distinction between writing code and writing software but I guess it’s an important one.
  - zepto 6y ago
    It is an important distinction. I think you’d be surprised how close swift playgrounds has become. All it really needs is a project navigation UI, and it will be good enough for building pure Swift/SwiftUI apps.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

> everybody that has a Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / TikTok account is a content creator. All the fora you mention are characterized by lack of longform text. What people are creating today tends to be image-heavy and eschew any long argumentation or prose storytelling. Having just a smartphone obviously represents a limitation. For example, I am a member of some niche travel communities. A decade ago, when it was common for people to lug a laptop, there was a healthier community of people writing detailed blog posts on certain destinations, editing Wikivoyage or Hitchwiki, etc. Now that those same travelers are leaving the laptop at home and traveling only with a phone where it is inconvenient to enter much text, the ecosystem of travel resources is actually poorer than it was in the past.

coddle-hark 6y ago
Yes, long-form text is down and photo/video based content has exploded — things are different but I’d hesitate to say that they’re worse overall. I used to share a computer with 5 other family members growing up in the 90’s, nowadays every kid has a content creation device on them 24/7. That seems like a good thing to me.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
fredthomsen 6y ago
Definitely agree with this. Twitter and other social media has really forced the short 140 character snippet or image to be favored over thoughtful posts and blog articles.
zepto 6y ago
I see a lot of long form medium articles these days. It’s not that they don’t exist. They are just very bad.

zepto 6y ago

You can totally write code on an iPad. There are plenty of JavaScript environments, not to mention Pythonista. Swift playgrounds will actually run quite large codebases with a little fiddling around. You can trivially get a robust Linux command line with Blink and a free tier Google compute instance. I agree there is no XCode.

samatman 6y ago
The iPad coding experience is decidedly sub-par, and has a long ways to go. This is in contrast to almost anything else you might care to do on a computer, where the iPad equivalent ranges from "basically fine" to "actually better". But people's perceptions are lagging a few years behind where the platform is at. That's normal.
coddle-hark 6y ago
I mean, sure, I can technically code on my PS4 too using the web-based Digital Ocean console. I didn’t make the distinction between writing code and writing software but I guess it’s an important one.
- zepto 6y ago
  It is an important distinction. I think you’d be surprised how close swift playgrounds has become. All it really needs is a project navigation UI, and it will be good enough for building pure Swift/SwiftUI apps.