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Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone

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Re: Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone

#31

Post by nmfisher »

ansible wrote: post #6
bitwize wrote: post #2

That is some hardcore hackery-dackery. It takes dedication and a real desire to learn to put up with such adverse conditions. I know a chap who, for a while, had spotty access to a PC except for the locked down one he had at work in his (non-programming) job. He passed the long hours making tiny JavaScript hacks in the URL bar.

While I don't mean to slight the front-end dev's dedication, there are more than a few of us who learned BASIC programming in the late 1970's and early 1980's... without access to any computing device at all. We would study BASIC from manuals and other books, and pour over program listings in magazines. Then we would write out programs on paper, and "interpret" them in our heads to see if they worked correctly. Some…

I learned BASIC and bash from library books as late as the early 90s.

Nowhere near as good as the real thing, but I remember loving it nonetheless.

Re: Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone

#32

Post by raihansaputra »

hemanta212 wrote: post #20

Sadly, this is how things are for many of us students, I currently study bachelors in CS here in Nepal and for me and some of my friends stuck in our villages (lockdown isn't still over here yet), we have been doing C assignments using editors avalialble in the playstore. Seeing these apps have millions of downloads, we're definitely not alone and I have seen many indian and other south asian friends do the same. My…

Can you share what apps you use? I saw an editor on the tweet image, So I guess there's some different setups using different apps out there.

Chrome on Android also has DevTools internally (through chrome://inspect when you connect a debuggable android to a laptop). I don't know whether that's possible to expose or not on the phone, but would be very helpful.

VSCode/Monaco should also be "runnable" as they're running on JS / V8. That will open a lot of extensibility.

Re: Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone

#33

Post by hannofcart »

akritrime wrote: post #11

I think this is more common than people realize. Especially in the Indian subcontinent, where most people have a smartphone but only few have a PC. I learnt programming on pen and paper first and then on those phone IDEs even before I had access to a pc. And even after a PC, I used to use my phone as a display for my desktop via chrome remote desktop because my monitor got damaged and only showed shades of green. And…

Yeah, I wish the governments in India and Nepal would provide some subsidies to incentivize companies to manufacture boards like to RPi which as far as I understand have open specifications.

Giving a RPi to a family without resources in India is a force multiplier. They typically have a small television set and letting them access a proper computer vitalizes learning for the children of that household.

I only have anecdotal evidence of this though, from when I handed an RPi I wasn't using to my housekeeper's daughter and also got her a 3g dongle with a cheap data plan for her to connect to the internet. It got handed down from her to her brothers as well.

Re: Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone

#34

Post by hemanta212 »

raihansaputra wrote: post #32
hemanta212 wrote: post #20

Sadly, this is how things are for many of us students, I currently study bachelors in CS here in Nepal and for me and some of my friends stuck in our villages (lockdown isn't still over here yet), we have been doing C assignments using editors avalialble in the playstore. Seeing these apps have millions of downloads, we're definitely not alone and I have seen many indian and other south asian friends do the same. My…

Can you share what apps you use? I saw an editor on the tweet image, So I guess there's some different setups using different apps out there. Chrome on Android also has DevTools internally (through chrome://inspect when you connect a debuggable android to a laptop). I don't know whether that's possible to expose or not on the phone, but would be very helpful. VSCode/Monaco should also be "runnable" as they're running…

For most starting out it's editors in playstore, There are editors for different langugages, I started with the pydroid editor. There you can write code and hit compile to show the output. As traversing menus by hand gets quite hard, the next approach is probably to learn termux and terminal as everything is keyboard driven.

I have tried jupyternotebooks, vscode on browser but the small screen is the real blocker and you can barely see the editing field.

I use termux for everything now, for websites I just open a localhost port and see it in my browser or do live reload in spare phone. Video and images are also redirected by the termux to respective apps.

Re: Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone

#35

Post by mnadkvlb »

hemanta212 wrote: post #20

Sadly, this is how things are for many of us students, I currently study bachelors in CS here in Nepal and for me and some of my friends stuck in our villages (lockdown isn't still over here yet), we have been doing C assignments using editors avalialble in the playstore. Seeing these apps have millions of downloads, we're definitely not alone and I have seen many indian and other south asian friends do the same. My…

Hey, if you are interested you can reply me with your email address here, i can ship you a laptop for free (intel 5th gen i5) that i dont use anymore. it has 4gigs of ram soldered (surface pro 3). and can hopefully be used for some development.

Re: Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone

#36

Post by raihansaputra »

hemanta212 wrote: post #34
raihansaputra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share what apps you use? I saw an editor on the tweet image, So I guess there's some different setups using different apps out there. Chrome on Android also has DevTools internally (through chrome://inspect when you connect a debuggable android to a laptop). I don't know whether that's possible to expose or not on the phone, but would be very helpful. VSCode/Monaco should also be "runnable" as they're running…

For most starting out it's editors in playstore, There are editors for different langugages, I started with the pydroid editor. There you can write code and hit compile to show the output. As traversing menus by hand gets quite hard, the next approach is probably to learn termux and terminal as everything is keyboard driven. I have tried jupyternotebooks, vscode on browser but the small screen is the real blocker and…

Yeah, desktop oriented apps such as jupyternotebook and VSCode will need UI adjustments to make it usable on the phone.

That's cool to know that you can run localhost and expose the port to another phone.

Thanks for sharing. Wishing you the best on your journey!

Re: Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone

#37

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Is it time to revive the OLPC program? That one started the low-cost "netbook" trend, after that the smartphones and tablets got to the forefront.

How much would a ruggedized laptop cost to make now? I know there's some RPI kits out there but they seem pretty pricey for what you get; I suspect the biggest expense is the screen, so that's an area that could be improved on. Surely there's older screen tech that can be produced at ridiculous scale nowadays? 1024x800 is enough for the basics. If that can run on a 5w USB charger that would be ideal, it could run off solar panels and cheap powerbanks then.

Anyway, if that's there then the tech companies who want to deduct some taxes can order millions and distribute them to the countries where people could benefit from them.

Re: Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone

#38

Post by loulouxiv »

Tade0 wrote: post #25

I used to have a similar setup on my phone when my laptop started dying and I was in the middle of moving countries. You can have Node running via termux, albeit with some limitations, e.g. no global modules. Of course debugging isn't really possible, so you'll have rely on your engineering prowess. I wanted to create a similar setup for Rust, but unfortunately compiling the compiler from source to work on Android wa…

It seems that termux is packaging rust now,

pkg install rust

Re: Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone

#39

Post by narrator »

hemanta212 wrote: post #20

Sadly, this is how things are for many of us students, I currently study bachelors in CS here in Nepal and for me and some of my friends stuck in our villages (lockdown isn't still over here yet), we have been doing C assignments using editors avalialble in the playstore. Seeing these apps have millions of downloads, we're definitely not alone and I have seen many indian and other south asian friends do the same. My…

Emacs is great for these small screens since it comes from a world where 80x24 terminals were the standard.

Re: Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone

#40

Post by fakedang »

ansible wrote: post #6
bitwize wrote: post #2

That is some hardcore hackery-dackery. It takes dedication and a real desire to learn to put up with such adverse conditions. I know a chap who, for a while, had spotty access to a PC except for the locked down one he had at work in his (non-programming) job. He passed the long hours making tiny JavaScript hacks in the URL bar.

While I don't mean to slight the front-end dev's dedication, there are more than a few of us who learned BASIC programming in the late 1970's and early 1980's... without access to any computing device at all. We would study BASIC from manuals and other books, and pour over program listings in magazines. Then we would write out programs on paper, and "interpret" them in our heads to see if they worked correctly. Some…

Early 80s?? We were doing that stuff up to the mid 00s in my school. Honestly I found it extremely unappealing because you could not get the result immediately, but in the long run, it helps to think about the working logic behind codes instead of simply shooting in the dark and debugging.
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