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Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?

#191

Post by lozenge »

comfypotato wrote: post #189
lozenge wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The speed you can input data into a smartphone just isn't conducive to creating anything. It isn't a grand conspiracy. On my computer I've never created something with the same screen size as the intended viewer.

I read the comments until I found this one. There’s something to be said for not needing the blazing speed of vim/Emacs, because most of the work is thinking, but smartphones are so far on the opposite end of the spectrum that the input and interaction with the dev environment is prohibitive. I think this is the key problem, no more no less. If I had a decent keyboard I would be much more inclined to write software o…

Yep, somebody else mentioned programming on their graphics calculator. Yeah, the display sucks but it has a better keyboard than your phone, especially if the BASIC keywords are assigned keys or key combinations. Phones need you to watch the screen as you input which inherently slows everything down.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?

#192

Post by opportune »

flipcoder wrote: post #185

Because then Apple wouldn't get its 30% cut or force you to buy a Mac to develop for iOS

Completely agree. Apple allows educational programming because it doesn’t seriously jeaopardize their revenue. If they let you compile and run arbitrary code (I bet they already have this capability for debugging internally) with full system access, without jumping through major hoops, they wouldn’t be able to tax that activity.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?

#193

Post by zamnos »

aswanson wrote: post #116
danuker wrote: post #5

I'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.

There are a few Python environments for iOS, and I'm sure Android also has some.

Pythonista is probably one of the better ones. http://omz-software.com/pythonista/

Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?

#194

Post by zamnos »

diego_moita wrote: post #106
nindalf wrote: post #85

The 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…

It is more than obvious if you look at the broad picture: computers on the 80s were sold to a few million people, most of them with, at least, high school degree and math inclinations (a.k.a. "nerds"). Smartphones, o.t.o.h. are sold to billions of people. The scale is just immense and is a completely different audience.

The other thing about computers in the 80's is that Internet access back then was a rarity. So the question, as asked (and answered by most of the comments), includes an implicity purity test - that only on-device programming is "real" programming and that programming on the Internet "doesn't count" for some reason. Yet between glitch.com, jsfiddle, etc, there's a whole slew of accessible programming environments available. I can low-code up some Zapier zaps and a Stripe checkout page, which is enough to get an MVP if you've found your niche customers.

Yeah, it's a different world than on-device compilers on back in the 80's but we're not programming in the 80's any more either. Hell, Stack Overflow didn't come about until 2008. Try telling people you learned to program before Stack Overflow (and Google, for that matter).

Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?

#195

Post by ttttt444yeak »

lozenge wrote: post #160
throwaway4aday wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your obvious answer is wrong. The fact is that modern smartphones are walled gardens with very large, powerful gatekeepers who want to protect their duopoly. The original impetus behind locking down the operating systems on smartphones was security but it evolved into a perfect way to ensure control over their market. There are no generic PC clones in the cellphone market, only small hobbyist or niche product…

The speed you can input data into a smartphone just isn't conducive to creating anything. It isn't a grand conspiracy. On my computer I've never created something with the same screen size as the intended viewer.

This is the real reason. It's very simple. Not even programmers would program on a smartphone so of course non programmers also aren't going to do it.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?

#196

Post by chlorion »

comfypotato wrote: post #189
lozenge wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The speed you can input data into a smartphone just isn't conducive to creating anything. It isn't a grand conspiracy. On my computer I've never created something with the same screen size as the intended viewer.

I read the comments until I found this one. There’s something to be said for not needing the blazing speed of vim/Emacs, because most of the work is thinking, but smartphones are so far on the opposite end of the spectrum that the input and interaction with the dev environment is prohibitive. I think this is the key problem, no more no less. If I had a decent keyboard I would be much more inclined to write software o…

I'm not sure what you mean about blazing speed and Emacs. Emacs is not a modal editor and isn't intended to increase your typing or code editing speed anymore than any other text editor.

I think people assume that Emacs is a modal editor like Vim but I'm not totally sure why that is.

Otherwise I agree that the mobile input methods are simply too limiting to work with.

Moving around the cursor is pretty difficult and accessing non-alphanumeric symbols sometimes requires clicking the "modifier" thing once or twice.

The on-screen touch-driven keyboard also takes up at least half of the screen, and shrinking it makes hitting a specific key much more difficult.

There is also the difficulty in holding the phone while doing all of this!

On Android you can connect a regular keyboard to the device and use that, then I think working on stuff could be viable!

Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?

#197

Post by [deleted] »

dTal wrote: post #154
rocket_surgeron wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The industry does not want you programming or creating, the industry wants you to be consuming For this to be true, logically the tools to create smartphone programs would be fiercely protected and only available to the chosen few and smartphone OS developers would never in a million years promote learning how to program on their devices. From my end it looks like the opposite of all of that is happening. I went to…

>For this to be true, logically the tools to create smartphone programs would be fiercely protected and only available to the chosen few In a way, they are. They are gatekept in a way that is transparent to you because you find yourself on the correct side of the gate. Apple's gatekeeping is overt, while Google's is more covert: 1) They require a desktop computer - a powerful one at that. Apple requires a Mac. It wou…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?

#198

Post by melagonster »

lozenge wrote: post #160
throwaway4aday wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your obvious answer is wrong. The fact is that modern smartphones are walled gardens with very large, powerful gatekeepers who want to protect their duopoly. The original impetus behind locking down the operating systems on smartphones was security but it evolved into a perfect way to ensure control over their market. There are no generic PC clones in the cellphone market, only small hobbyist or niche product…

The speed you can input data into a smartphone just isn't conducive to creating anything. It isn't a grand conspiracy. On my computer I've never created something with the same screen size as the intended viewer.

I saw some gen-Z input on their cellphone, they told me it is faster than keyboard.

in another way, it is possible to connect a keyboard to cellphone.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?

#199

Post by melagonster »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #156
wongarsu wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

I know the term creator has its genesis from the word create. But no, most creators are not doing anything creative. One way to see this is to notice there are movies made a 100 years ago that people will still watch today. There are books written half a millennium ago people read today. There are pieces of music written 100s of years ago people listen to today. There’s almost nothing created on Instagram or TikTok t…

yes, but we can found people still know what is they want. they just so fast. there are some old song published to tiktok and became popular in one week.

p.s. even more than 200 years old: https://youtu.be/qP-7GNoDJ5c

Re: Ask HN: Why don't smartphones encourage programming like early 80s computers?

#200

Post by zamnos »

easrng wrote: post #159
dTal wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For this to be true, logically the tools to create smartphone programs would be fiercely protected and only available to the chosen few In a way, they are. They are gatekept in a way that is transparent to you because you find yourself on the correct side of the gate. Apple's gatekeeping is overt, while Google's is more covert: 1) They require a desktop computer - a powerful one at that. Apple requires a Mac. It wou…

I agree with most of this post, but "Apple requires a Mac. It would be trivial to release an app builder that ran on the phone, but they don't. Apple even outright forbids such apps, or any kind of interpreted environment." isn't actually correct. They have a first-party app called Swift Playgrounds that lets you write apps on iPads, and other interpreters are allowed (Pythonista, Scriptable, iSH) But yeah, native GU…

For some reason we all read the question and limited our answers to an on-device BASIC prompt like it's still the 80's. It's not the 80's though and we have the Internet and you mentioned webapps - why don't we count cloud IDEs as something that "encourages you to learn programming right away?" There was no requirement in the original question as worded that it be an on-phone development happen on the phone, and yet we all read it that way. On my phone, I open the web browser, enter a VScode web Github Codespace, and a print ("hello world") later I'm off to the programming races, running my code on server on the other end.

Trying to answer to question but excluding resources on the Internet is like trying to program without the Internet. It's very much possible, but only for some bizarre purity test. Between Stack Overflow, Google, and even ChatGPT, never mind that documentation is all online these days (developer.apple.com; devdocs.io); it's hard to imagine programming without the Internet. Why then not include Cloud IDEs as part of the answer? What sort of purity test do they fail? Sure, they rely on resources not on the device, but to the broader question - "encourage you to learn programming", I'd say they very much qualify.

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