23 ms·

This is somewhat all over the place without a lot of supporting evidence. Is the author suggesting that the web will die, and be replaced by thousands of speci

by jiggy2011 14y ago

This is somewhat all over the place without a lot of supporting evidence. Is the author suggesting that the web will die, and be replaced by thousands of special purpose apps that must be downloaded from the app store?

toomuchblah 14y ago
Zynga could be considered evidence. There is nothing so special about other classes of applications that make them immune.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Not sure what Zynga is evidence of?
  - toomuchblah 14y ago
    Being made obsolete by mobile.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      Well games on the web has never really taken off as a thing, Zynga I would guess were the people to do it most successfully. There is huge value in having a standard, indexed repository of information like the www. If I want to find some specific information I don't want to have to find and download a specific app every time.
floppydisk 14y ago
Peeling back the exterior and getting at the meat of the argument, I think the author is really arguing that the future "makers" of things are having their perception of the internet and computing shaped by their interactions with walled garden devices and controlled environments. Building off of this, they will proceed to continue perpetuating a world emphasized by unique apps and walled gardens instead of the creativity of current and prior hacker generations. What would be really interesting is if the author did a study looking at past generations and how their initial perception of connectivity shaped what they built using it. I.E. all the phone phreakers and hardware hackers in the 70s and 80s laying the foundation for modern computing.
- zanny 14y ago
  A more concise argument is that your Android tablet that is Junior's first computing experience is significantly less hackable than your Commodore 64, which was more hackable than your DOS machine, which was more hackable than your Windows 95 machine, which was more hackable than your XP machine, et. cetera. Devices provide higher levels of abstraction from the tweak and tunables on the system, but only now are we seeing devices where there is no easy way to actually write code for them, on them. You can't write an iphone app on an actual iphone, and I don't know if you can compile an apk on Android (I know Java ides on Android exist, though). About the only thing you can do is write web pages you can open locally. That still works. And I don't see walled apps overtaking the expanse of the internet - there is just too much content and experience only found surfing old crummy html documents you won't get on your walled garden facebook app experience. And Android is taking the smartphone market, while being relatively open for a platform with the rooting and loading of any apk you want (if you set the option).
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    The next generation of hackers will certainly be working one abstraction level up. Most likely they will do creative stuff involving grabbing some remote VMs and building systems where the underlying computer is not so relevant. Trying to fit all media and information into one giant walled garden would be far too challenging for a single entity.
  - camus 14y ago
    you could write your app with a web app ,get a quick preview , compile it and deliver it through a cloud service so you can test localy directly ( it already exists ) , applicationcraft .
  - dromidas 14y ago
    Really good (long) summary, zanny. That was what I had garnered from the article's musings. It's something I've thought about a lot myself actually. How would I give a child the opportunity to learn to hack or program if they wanted to? For me it started with c-64 basic cause it wasn't compiled, then visual basic when I was like 13... I guess C# or Java could probably be taught very easily, but it feels like starting out learning martial arts by teaching them advanced maneuvers. It feels like the wax on, wax off approach really is the wise course but showing them QBasic or something hardly seems like a step forward.
kaliblack 14y ago
My thoughts exactly, and I think that is what the author was trying to say. The argument seems to be "children use tablets, therefore no open Internet." Last time I checked children turn into teenagers and then adults, both of which have different habits and drivers. It's like saying, "children watch cartoons, therefore no live action TV and movies."
- toomuchblah 14y ago
  The problem with cartoons is we outgrew them, that did not happen with PCs. PCs evolved so fast in the span of a couple decades they became ingrained in most aspects of our lives and works and educations. Three years ago the iPad didn't even exist.

toomuchblah 14y ago

Zynga could be considered evidence. There is nothing so special about other classes of applications that make them immune.

jiggy2011 14y ago
Not sure what Zynga is evidence of?
- toomuchblah 14y ago
  Being made obsolete by mobile.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Well games on the web has never really taken off as a thing, Zynga I would guess were the people to do it most successfully. There is huge value in having a standard, indexed repository of information like the www. If I want to find some specific information I don't want to have to find and download a specific app every time.

floppydisk 14y ago

Peeling back the exterior and getting at the meat of the argument, I think the author is really arguing that the future "makers" of things are having their perception of the internet and computing shaped by their interactions with walled garden devices and controlled environments. Building off of this, they will proceed to continue perpetuating a world emphasized by unique apps and walled gardens instead of the creativity of current and prior hacker generations. What would be really interesting is if the author did a study looking at past generations and how their initial perception of connectivity shaped what they built using it. I.E. all the phone phreakers and hardware hackers in the 70s and 80s laying the foundation for modern computing.

zanny 14y ago
A more concise argument is that your Android tablet that is Junior's first computing experience is significantly less hackable than your Commodore 64, which was more hackable than your DOS machine, which was more hackable than your Windows 95 machine, which was more hackable than your XP machine, et. cetera. Devices provide higher levels of abstraction from the tweak and tunables on the system, but only now are we seeing devices where there is no easy way to actually write code for them, on them. You can't write an iphone app on an actual iphone, and I don't know if you can compile an apk on Android (I know Java ides on Android exist, though). About the only thing you can do is write web pages you can open locally. That still works. And I don't see walled apps overtaking the expanse of the internet - there is just too much content and experience only found surfing old crummy html documents you won't get on your walled garden facebook app experience. And Android is taking the smartphone market, while being relatively open for a platform with the rooting and loading of any apk you want (if you set the option).
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  The next generation of hackers will certainly be working one abstraction level up. Most likely they will do creative stuff involving grabbing some remote VMs and building systems where the underlying computer is not so relevant. Trying to fit all media and information into one giant walled garden would be far too challenging for a single entity.
- camus 14y ago
  you could write your app with a web app ,get a quick preview , compile it and deliver it through a cloud service so you can test localy directly ( it already exists ) , applicationcraft .
- dromidas 14y ago
  Really good (long) summary, zanny. That was what I had garnered from the article's musings. It's something I've thought about a lot myself actually. How would I give a child the opportunity to learn to hack or program if they wanted to? For me it started with c-64 basic cause it wasn't compiled, then visual basic when I was like 13... I guess C# or Java could probably be taught very easily, but it feels like starting out learning martial arts by teaching them advanced maneuvers. It feels like the wax on, wax off approach really is the wise course but showing them QBasic or something hardly seems like a step forward.

kaliblack 14y ago

My thoughts exactly, and I think that is what the author was trying to say. The argument seems to be "children use tablets, therefore no open Internet." Last time I checked children turn into teenagers and then adults, both of which have different habits and drivers. It's like saying, "children watch cartoons, therefore no live action TV and movies."

toomuchblah 14y ago
The problem with cartoons is we outgrew them, that did not happen with PCs. PCs evolved so fast in the span of a couple decades they became ingrained in most aspects of our lives and works and educations. Three years ago the iPad didn't even exist.