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Tinkerer’s Sunset

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Re: Tinkerer’s Sunset

#21

Post by waterlesscloud »

jdminhbg wrote: post #3

This whole tinkering panic is ridiculous. Did tinkering end when Nintendo released the NES? Or more recently with the Wii? His dad could have bought a word processor instead of a ][e, would he have been able to tinker with that? Some devices are more open than others. This is not a new phenomenon, nor did anything change on Wednesday.

Because people are extrapolating into the future where these sorts of devices dominate the computing landscape.

Which isn't at all unreasonable, since that's what Apple is also doing.

Re: Tinkerer’s Sunset

#22

Post by bd »

potatolicious wrote: post #13
wmf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the argument is that in the old days you didn't have to buy anything extra; you could tinker with your main computer. This drew in some opportunistic hackers.

> "didn't have to buy anything extra; you could tinker with your main computer" You realize that mass adoption of the "home computer" is a very, very recent phenomenon, right? I grew up with a computer in the late 80s/early 90s because my father was in the field, but most of my neighbours did not start getting computers until the mid 90s. IMHO the image of the precocious youngster learning to hack on the machine his…

A lot of people grew up in 80s with computers used primarily for games. I was a kid in glory days of 8-bit computers (Atari, Commodore, Sinclair). There were many many millions sold of those.

So yes, many precocious youngsters of my generation learned to hack just because they happened to have computer (bought for non-hacking purpose) and it was tempting and possible to tinker.

Re: Tinkerer’s Sunset

#23

Post by mbrubeck »

oconnor0 wrote: post #20
Zak wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a virtual machine or interpreter, and that's against the TOS.

Virtual machines are against Apple's App Store's TOS?

"No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."

-- Apple iPhone SDK agreement

Re: Tinkerer’s Sunset

#24

Post by tfinniga »

mbrubeck wrote: post #23
oconnor0 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtual machines are against Apple's App Store's TOS?

"No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)." -- Apple iPhone SDK agreement

The only hope is a javascript-based interpreter, which bypasses the SDK. We'll see how fast the A4 is, I guess.

Re: Tinkerer’s Sunset

#25

Post by rosser »

yan wrote: post #19

I really don't understand the wave of alarmist posts on the 'end of a tinkering era'. Today, we have more communities and devices for tinkering than we've ever had. Magazines like Make, sites like Hack-a-day, platforms like Arduino, and countless open source projects that are simply there to be messed with, and one device that comes out with a (probably) justified need to be locked down, and everyone raises panic? If…

"Tinkerable" and "steep learning curve" are orthogonal.

In fact, what the article's author is decrying is that this thing without a steep learning curve is completely un-tinkerable. That, per his argument, is what will cost us some chunk of the next generation of programmers -- that, in pursuit of ease of adoption (and/or control), Apple has lopped off tinkerability.

You're absolutely right: if I want to tinker, I have more options available to me today than anyone ever has before. But it's not me that's being cut off from tinkering. It's the novice computer user, who's only beginning her journey of discovery into the possibilities these incredible tools can offer -- because the tool she has in front of her, as it's been given to her, explicitly excludes those possibilities. She doesn't know what Arduino is; she doesn't even have a concept for it. As far as she's concerned, FPGA is something a golfer might join. Those are things for people already at least knee-deep in tinkering.

All she knows is, "Wouldn't it be cool if my iPad had ... ?" or "Wow, I wish I could ... " And the tool she has not only gives her no ability to explore those possibilities, it looks like it's designed to actively impede her from exploring them.

Re: Tinkerer’s Sunset

#26

Post by yan »

rosser wrote: post #25
yan wrote: post #19

I really don't understand the wave of alarmist posts on the 'end of a tinkering era'. Today, we have more communities and devices for tinkering than we've ever had. Magazines like Make, sites like Hack-a-day, platforms like Arduino, and countless open source projects that are simply there to be messed with, and one device that comes out with a (probably) justified need to be locked down, and everyone raises panic? If…

"Tinkerable" and "steep learning curve" are orthogonal. In fact, what the article's author is decrying is that this thing without a steep learning curve is completely un-tinkerable. That, per his argument, is what will cost us some chunk of the next generation of programmers -- that, in pursuit of ease of adoption (and/or control), Apple has lopped off tinkerability. You're absolutely right: if I want to tinker, I ha…

> All she knows is, "Wouldn't it be cool if my iPad had ... ?" or "Wow, I wish I could ... " And the tool she has not only gives her no ability to explore those possibilities, it looks like it's designed to actively impede her from exploring them.

While I understand this argument has no right or wrong answers, I can't say I agree to the above statement. Just by the virtue of having a well-designed piece of hardware in her hand, she can start asking these questions. If it was an open platform, it would most likely have been of lower quality, not as ground-breaking, and she wouldn't have had it in her hands in the first place (I'd love to be wrong here, but I'm afraid I can't find the evidence to prove myself wrong). The fact that it has "apps", written by real people can actually guide her to search online what it takes to create these apps, from which she can then find out about open platforms, programming languages, (even FPGAs!) and development in general.

I understand that talking about our curious, hypothetical protagonist we can prove anything we agree with, but without an extremely approachable, polished device it would simply not appeal to as many people. Most of these people will just be users, but some will be curious, and those are the ones we're talking about. Since hobbyist platforms are ubiquitous, you don't need to create yet another hackable platform, you need to get them interested.

I'm purposefully holding back anything specific to the iPad. Nor I, nor the majority of HN readers have even held the device, but knowing Apple, I think it can vastly increase the ubiquity of general purpose computing even more, and make good UI and design be expected. And that's a win for everyone.

Re: Tinkerer’s Sunset

#27

Post by Periodic »

rosser wrote: post #25
yan wrote: post #19

I really don't understand the wave of alarmist posts on the 'end of a tinkering era'. Today, we have more communities and devices for tinkering than we've ever had. Magazines like Make, sites like Hack-a-day, platforms like Arduino, and countless open source projects that are simply there to be messed with, and one device that comes out with a (probably) justified need to be locked down, and everyone raises panic? If…

"Tinkerable" and "steep learning curve" are orthogonal. In fact, what the article's author is decrying is that this thing without a steep learning curve is completely un-tinkerable. That, per his argument, is what will cost us some chunk of the next generation of programmers -- that, in pursuit of ease of adoption (and/or control), Apple has lopped off tinkerability. You're absolutely right: if I want to tinker, I ha…

And I'm pretty sure that plenty of those youngsters who would have loved to tinker got nothing more powerful than a pocket calculator in the 80's because computers were very expensive and hard to come by. I would argue that these calculators were not very tinker-friendly.

I think you underestimate the curiosity of kids and their ability to find things to tinker with if they have that inclination.

Re: Tinkerer’s Sunset

#28

Post by blhack »

potatolicious wrote: post #13
wmf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the argument is that in the old days you didn't have to buy anything extra; you could tinker with your main computer. This drew in some opportunistic hackers.

> "didn't have to buy anything extra; you could tinker with your main computer" You realize that mass adoption of the "home computer" is a very, very recent phenomenon, right? I grew up with a computer in the late 80s/early 90s because my father was in the field, but most of my neighbours did not start getting computers until the mid 90s. IMHO the image of the precocious youngster learning to hack on the machine his…

People had these computers for reasons other than to tinker. The example given in TFS is about a dad using a machine as a wordprocessor. I have an arduino board because I grew up tinkering and the arduino lets me relive the late nights spent up learning, but they are not something that anybody who isn't already a tinkerer will buy.

Re: Tinkerer’s Sunset

#29

Post by blhack »

jdminhbg wrote: post #3

This whole tinkering panic is ridiculous. Did tinkering end when Nintendo released the NES? Or more recently with the Wii? His dad could have bought a word processor instead of a ][e, would he have been able to tinker with that? Some devices are more open than others. This is not a new phenomenon, nor did anything change on Wednesday.

I think the difference is that while there have been some smaller, less obvious things that you have been locked out of (gaming consoles, for instance) Apple has come out with what will be the future of computing, and they have blatantly said "This is ours, don't touch it. If you do, we will sue."

Re: Tinkerer’s Sunset

#30

Post by rosser »

Periodic wrote: post #27
rosser wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tinkerable" and "steep learning curve" are orthogonal. In fact, what the article's author is decrying is that this thing without a steep learning curve is completely un-tinkerable. That, per his argument, is what will cost us some chunk of the next generation of programmers -- that, in pursuit of ease of adoption (and/or control), Apple has lopped off tinkerability. You're absolutely right: if I want to tinker, I ha…

And I'm pretty sure that plenty of those youngsters who would have loved to tinker got nothing more powerful than a pocket calculator in the 80's because computers were very expensive and hard to come by. I would argue that these calculators were not very tinker-friendly. I think you underestimate the curiosity of kids and their ability to find things to tinker with if they have that inclination.

It's not curiosity or inclination I'm doubting. It's availability of tools. As far as we know, to develop for the platform she's using, she'll also need a "real" computer. And a (paid!) membership in Apple's developer program. And, and, and. That's the wall she needs to scale here -- not merely, "How do I ... "

How many people does that wall turn away, who might otherwise have discovered a new passion or talent? How much does it take from the rest of us, having all those potential hackers and tinkerers turned away before they could even discover they wanted to tinker and hack? What incredible ways might they have changed the world, if only they'd had the opportunity to discover that they could?

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