Phones are designed for consuming, not creating unlike the desktop.
Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
111–120 of 235 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#112Have you tried writing code on a smartphone?
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#113The 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 i…
> The answer is obvious - most people don’t want to do this.
There are still millions of people who want to do this.
The question is more: why do phone companies actively discourage it?
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#114The 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 i…
Facts. I like retro computing and have dozens of old processors I want to kit up and build tools for. But that's just me. To expect most people to want to do stuff like that would not make sense.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#115The 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 i…
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Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#116I'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…
I dunno. Python on the phone might be kinda cool.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#117Programming is a means to an end.
If kids could have just instantly downloaded any program they wanted, they wouldn't have been copying programs out of the back of magazines.
Personally, I came a little later, but I also learned stuff because I had to in order to do the things I wanted to do. After enough exposure I realized it was fun and interesting.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#118Speaking for myself, the command line prompt never inspired me to learn programming. I messed with quite a few Commadore and even Sinclair computers back in the day and the command line was only ever used to load programs from disk. I did try programming from scratch and even typed in some of the programs published in BYTE and whatnot. Nothing I ever came up with on my own ever seemed worth the effort and certainly w…
IT folks were still able to administer things or write a script to get things done. Business folks can build a sophisticated spreadsheet for example. i.e. not a binary distinction.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#119Because whilst more people than ever use computers, their literacy of them, i.e., understanding of how they function, it as at an all time low.
Computers used to be nerds. Now they're for grandmothers. They're now idiot-proof appliances for consumption.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?
#120Because smartphones are designed to keep you stupid. Computer literacy means you are able to poke holes in their shitty abstractions. The industry does not want you programming or creating, the industry wants you to be consuming. Preferably with your credit card.
> The industry does not want you [...] creating Twitter, Instagram and TikTok would like to differ. User created content is still a major thing, even if we stopped calling it web 2.0. Most of that just happens in other domains than programming (though Roblox exists, so programming does happen too).
Only because they get to monetize the consumption of your content. In fact it is you who is building their product for them. Way cheaper than hiring writers or a video production team!