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I think your obvious answer is wrong. The fact is that modern smartphones are walled gardens with very large, powerful gatekeepers who want to protect their duo

I think your obvious answer is wrong. The fact is that modern smartphones are walled gardens with very large, powerful gatekeepers who want to protect their duopoly. The original impetus behind locking down the operating systems on smartphones was security but it evolved into a perfect way to ensure control over their market. There are no generic PC clones in the cellphone market, only small hobbyist or niche products that barely work. A+G encourage programming for their OSs only in so far as the output of such an activity can be sold on their app stores where they can take their cut and still retain absolute control over what gets installed. In regards to plugins, someone has to write them. Even if the people writing those plugins use LLM tools to assist them they still need to know how to put software together and how to manage all of the services that those APIs talk to and how to scale their infrastructure along with user growth.

mardifoufs 4y ago
I'm not sure that's true. AFAIK even Apple allows bundled interpreters for educational purposes on the App Store. There are tons of ways to program on both mobile platforms. Here's just a random example, a full python environment for iPhone/iPad: https://pyto.app/ https://pyto.app/
lozenge 4y ago
The speed you can input data into a smartphone just isn't conducive to creating anything. It isn't a grand conspiracy. On my computer I've never created something with the same screen size as the intended viewer.
- comfypotato 4y ago
  I read the comments until I found this one. There’s something to be said for not needing the blazing speed of vim/Emacs, because most of the work is thinking, but smartphones are so far on the opposite end of the spectrum that the input and interaction with the dev environment is prohibitive. I think this is the key problem, no more no less. If I had a decent keyboard I would be much more inclined to write software on my phone. Come on, there isn’t even a shift key, led along the other modifiers.
  - lozenge 4y ago
    Yep, somebody else mentioned programming on their graphics calculator. Yeah, the display sucks but it has a better keyboard than your phone, especially if the BASIC keywords are assigned keys or key combinations. Phones need you to watch the screen as you input which inherently slows everything down.
  - chlorion 4y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean about blazing speed and Emacs. Emacs is not a modal editor and isn't intended to increase your typing or code editing speed anymore than any other text editor. I think people assume that Emacs is a modal editor like Vim but I'm not totally sure why that is. Otherwise I agree that the mobile input methods are simply too limiting to work with. Moving around the cursor is pretty difficult and accessing non-alphanumeric symbols sometimes requires clicking the "modifier" thing once or twice. The on-screen touch-driven keyboard also takes up at least half of the screen, and shrinking it makes hitting a specific key much more difficult. There is also the difficulty in holding the phone while doing all of this! On Android you can connect a regular keyboard to the device and use that, then I think working on stuff could be viable!
    - Kokouane 4y ago
      > Emacs is not a modal editor and isn't intended to increase your typing or code editing speed anymore than any other text editor. This is true by default, but many people do use Spacemacs or Emacs with doom mode enabled which does allow vi keybindings, so I think some people associate it with modal editing.
      - Hedepig 4y ago
        Emacs can be anything you want if you build it or what you want is built.
- ttttt444yeak 4y ago
  This is the real reason. It's very simple. Not even programmers would program on a smartphone so of course non programmers also aren't going to do it.
  - tester457 4y ago
    There are many people who write short programs on smartphones with termux.[0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24979258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24979258
- melagonster 4y ago
  I saw some gen-Z input on their cellphone, they told me it is faster than keyboard. in another way, it is possible to connect a keyboard to cellphone.
  - ungamedplayer 4y ago
    This is probably true for non touch typing, almost absolutely incorrect for a competent touch typist who regularly uses words outside of the default common English suggestions provided by the keyboard.
literallyroy 4y ago
Just to clarify when you say: > I think your obvious answer is wrong You are saying this is wrong: > The answer is obvious - most people don’t want to do this. You are saying you believe the majority of people *do* want to learn to program? I’m my eyes the BASIC prompts at startup we’re there because that’s how you had to interact with computers at the time. Seems like the vast majority of people want to use their phones not program them.

mardifoufs 4y ago

I'm not sure that's true. AFAIK even Apple allows bundled interpreters for educational purposes on the App Store. There are tons of ways to program on both mobile platforms. Here's just a random example, a full python environment for iPhone/iPad: https://pyto.app/ https://pyto.app/

lozenge 4y ago

The speed you can input data into a smartphone just isn't conducive to creating anything. It isn't a grand conspiracy. On my computer I've never created something with the same screen size as the intended viewer.

comfypotato 4y ago
I read the comments until I found this one. There’s something to be said for not needing the blazing speed of vim/Emacs, because most of the work is thinking, but smartphones are so far on the opposite end of the spectrum that the input and interaction with the dev environment is prohibitive. I think this is the key problem, no more no less. If I had a decent keyboard I would be much more inclined to write software on my phone. Come on, there isn’t even a shift key, led along the other modifiers.
- lozenge 4y ago
  Yep, somebody else mentioned programming on their graphics calculator. Yeah, the display sucks but it has a better keyboard than your phone, especially if the BASIC keywords are assigned keys or key combinations. Phones need you to watch the screen as you input which inherently slows everything down.
- chlorion 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean about blazing speed and Emacs. Emacs is not a modal editor and isn't intended to increase your typing or code editing speed anymore than any other text editor. I think people assume that Emacs is a modal editor like Vim but I'm not totally sure why that is. Otherwise I agree that the mobile input methods are simply too limiting to work with. Moving around the cursor is pretty difficult and accessing non-alphanumeric symbols sometimes requires clicking the "modifier" thing once or twice. The on-screen touch-driven keyboard also takes up at least half of the screen, and shrinking it makes hitting a specific key much more difficult. There is also the difficulty in holding the phone while doing all of this! On Android you can connect a regular keyboard to the device and use that, then I think working on stuff could be viable!
  - Kokouane 4y ago
    > Emacs is not a modal editor and isn't intended to increase your typing or code editing speed anymore than any other text editor. This is true by default, but many people do use Spacemacs or Emacs with doom mode enabled which does allow vi keybindings, so I think some people associate it with modal editing.
    - Hedepig 4y ago
      Emacs can be anything you want if you build it or what you want is built.
ttttt444yeak 4y ago
This is the real reason. It's very simple. Not even programmers would program on a smartphone so of course non programmers also aren't going to do it.
- tester457 4y ago
  There are many people who write short programs on smartphones with termux.[0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24979258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24979258
melagonster 4y ago
I saw some gen-Z input on their cellphone, they told me it is faster than keyboard. in another way, it is possible to connect a keyboard to cellphone.
- ungamedplayer 4y ago
  This is probably true for non touch typing, almost absolutely incorrect for a competent touch typist who regularly uses words outside of the default common English suggestions provided by the keyboard.

literallyroy 4y ago

Just to clarify when you say: > I think your obvious answer is wrong You are saying this is wrong: > The answer is obvious - most people don’t want to do this. You are saying you believe the majority of people *do* want to learn to program? I’m my eyes the BASIC prompts at startup we’re there because that’s how you had to interact with computers at the time. Seems like the vast majority of people want to use their phones not program them.