Because keyboards aren't the native interface to a smartphone.
And the target audience doesn't want to be a programmer or even customize their phone.
Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
81–90 of 235 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#82The bar of entry is much higher and Smart Phones are designed that way. It is impossible to play around with programming on Smart Phones when you need to either Jail Break the phone or pay for expensive licenses.
The last thing companies want to happen with smart phones is what happened to PCs. People were able to upend many large commercial companies in the 80s and 90s due to the low bar of entry.
Just to name a few: DEC, CDC, Data General, Wang. IBM almost folded due to the PC. So Smart Phones were made closed to prevent the same revolution from repeating itself.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#83I'd argue that a mobile phone is not an adequate platform for coding. The touchscreen and keyboard layouts make it difficult to type needed symbols, distracting from the problem at hand. Coding requires deep thought, but phones are optimized for moving around rather than sitting in one place and thinking. As such, use cases like maps, calendars, communication and alarms get priority. The reason people buy a phone is…
We wrote tons of games on 80's computers with crappy keyboards and 40x25 text on poor quality TV's
Even the rubber keys of a ZX Spectrum were better than trying to type on a small touchscreen, though.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#84I'd argue that a mobile phone is not an adequate platform for coding. The touchscreen and keyboard layouts make it difficult to type needed symbols, distracting from the problem at hand. Coding requires deep thought, but phones are optimized for moving around rather than sitting in one place and thinking. As such, use cases like maps, calendars, communication and alarms get priority. The reason people buy a phone is…
We wrote tons of games on 80's computers with crappy keyboards and 40x25 text on poor quality TV's
I feel like the crapiest of keyboards is still better than an on screen keyboard for long text entry.
I tried ssh-ing from my phone once, and it was an absolutely terrible experience.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#85The answer is obvious - most people don’t want to do this. They want to text or call a friend, look up the weather or sports, stream some entertainment or read the news. They’re experts in their own domains and don’t have the time or inclination to learn programming.
There’s some heavy condescension in this thread, claiming that not programming “keeps people stupid”. As if creating can only happen in an IDE and not in ProCreate or iMovie. It would help if programmers like us eased up on everyone else. Not everyone needs to be exactly like us.
Also, you have to be living under a literal rock if you’ve missed the potential impact of LLMs, specifically chatGPT plugins. Once that’s generally available, everyone can tell the LLM what they want in their native language and have it done. Everyone can build custom recipes that combine multiple apps and APIs in novel ways to get stuff done. That’s a revolution waiting to happen - where everyone will be limited only by their imagination, not by their knowledge of programming. And it’ll happen without having to show every smartphone user a BASIC terminal.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#86The bar of entry is much higher and Smart Phones are designed that way. It is impossible to play around with programming on Smart Phones when you need to either Jail Break the phone or pay for expensive licenses. The last thing companies want to happen with smart phones is what happened to PCs. People were able to upend many large commercial companies in the 80s and 90s due to the low bar of entry. Just to name a few…
You can write apps for an Android phone without jailbreaking/rooting it. And you don't need an expensive license to use Android Studio. Point taken that the barrier to entry is higher though.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#87[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#88I have very sweet memories of installing an app called "Terminal IDE". At the time I had no idea how to install (or use) Linux so this was my first time
The best part was that the author had included a lovely help manual which briefly showed how to use command line tools, gdb, tmux, vim, irc, git, etc. but it was cryptic enough that I had to experiment a lot. And the environment was pretty constrained - BusyBox, a couple of pre-compiled tools but no package manager or X11.
This was my gateway into "real" programming, as opposed to typing things in an IDE.
But there is nothing phone-specific about this, if I had an easy way to try Linux on my computer, I would have preferred that. Obviously now WSL exists so it kind of fills that niche.
I think the app is no longer available and there are better alternatives, but I still have it on an 8 year old device.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#89Obviously because they are designed for consumers to consume. Not for producers to produce like 80s computers.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#90I'd argue that a mobile phone is not an adequate platform for coding. The touchscreen and keyboard layouts make it difficult to type needed symbols, distracting from the problem at hand. Coding requires deep thought, but phones are optimized for moving around rather than sitting in one place and thinking. As such, use cases like maps, calendars, communication and alarms get priority. The reason people buy a phone is…
> “The touchscreen and keyboard layouts make it difficult to type needed symbols”
The key layout on a touchscreen is entirely adaptable though. A language with a custom symbol set designed for small touchscreen entry could perform well.
I’ve long thought that an APL-derived language might be great for phone coding. The custom symbols aren’t a problem on a touchscreen, and the extreme code density means you could fit a lot of meaningful program on a small screen.