3 ms·

True but technology is becoming increasingly restrictive as time goes on. A kid today can't write software on a phone like you could with old computers. And jus

True but technology is becoming increasingly restrictive as time goes on. A kid today can't write software on a phone like you could with old computers. And just like hardware, software is growing in complexity and buried from the user.

delecti 12y ago
You could absolutely download a BASIC interpreter for a phone (quick google search found at least a few for both iOS and Android). That alone is on par with what you could do with most old computers. And with a modern PC you can write software for iOS or Android (or for the computer itself) leagues more complex than almost anything that even existed 30 years ago.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> A kid today can't write software on a phone like you could with old computers. On Android, at least, to the extent that that's a problem, its a convenience-of-the-form-factor problem (with tablets even this isn't really a big problem, especially with keyboard cases), rather than a lack-of-support problem (iOS, out of the box, is somewhat more locked down, but even there I think there are some options.) There are quite a lot of on-device programming environments, largely free-of-charge, in the Google Play Store.
kalleboo 12y ago
> A kid today can't write software on a phone like you could with old computers Sure you can, it's just not staring you in the face from the second you turn it on. And there's just so many more distractions these days. I'm not even old enough for the BASIC days, I grew up with a Mac Classic, but you had maybe 10 simple games, an office package, a draw program and that was it. Then there was HyperCard where I could create all those other things. As a kid I didn't think of it as "programming", I was just messing around creating things. On a device today there's a million free apps to spend your time on. If you want to do programming you have to decide "I want to learn programming" and look up the tools for that.
dharma1 12y ago
That's very true. It's possible to hook a BT keyboard to android and hack away on something like cloud9 IDE. But you really have to know what you are looking for, it's not something you stumble upon. Plus the screen size is kind inconvenient.

delecti 12y ago

You could absolutely download a BASIC interpreter for a phone (quick google search found at least a few for both iOS and Android). That alone is on par with what you could do with most old computers. And with a modern PC you can write software for iOS or Android (or for the computer itself) leagues more complex than almost anything that even existed 30 years ago.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> A kid today can't write software on a phone like you could with old computers. On Android, at least, to the extent that that's a problem, its a convenience-of-the-form-factor problem (with tablets even this isn't really a big problem, especially with keyboard cases), rather than a lack-of-support problem (iOS, out of the box, is somewhat more locked down, but even there I think there are some options.) There are quite a lot of on-device programming environments, largely free-of-charge, in the Google Play Store.

kalleboo 12y ago

> A kid today can't write software on a phone like you could with old computers Sure you can, it's just not staring you in the face from the second you turn it on. And there's just so many more distractions these days. I'm not even old enough for the BASIC days, I grew up with a Mac Classic, but you had maybe 10 simple games, an office package, a draw program and that was it. Then there was HyperCard where I could create all those other things. As a kid I didn't think of it as "programming", I was just messing around creating things. On a device today there's a million free apps to spend your time on. If you want to do programming you have to decide "I want to learn programming" and look up the tools for that.

dharma1 12y ago

That's very true. It's possible to hook a BT keyboard to android and hack away on something like cloud9 IDE. But you really have to know what you are looking for, it's not something you stumble upon. Plus the screen size is kind inconvenient.