Why I’m scared of the post-PC era. • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#31

Post by icandoitbetter » Fri, Oct 14, 2011, 11:22 PM UTC

There's a surprising amount of belief in historical determinism in the discussion here, which is utterly unjustified. It is easy to believe that the future will fix itself on its own. But such beliefs are mostly the result of not being able to imagine alternative histories in which things don't get to be so rosy.

The truth is that so many things in the history of computing were improbable, and made possible by a select few very strong-willed individuals. Personal computing was improbable. The dominance of open source was improbable. etc.

It's up to us to ensure that the post-PC era won't be the era of walled gardens, which is definitely where it's headed. And that would be perfectly fine, if our walled gardens weren't so darn suboptimal.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3335

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#32

Post by randomdata » Fri, Oct 14, 2011, 11:25 PM UTC

comex wrote: post #23

There are multiple BASIC and Scheme interpreters in the App Store, as well as apps for writing HTML documents. If you want to write proper apps, an iOS developer certificate costs money, but so did Visual Basic back in the day, and on Android or a jailbroken iPhone it's free. Post-PC devices are inherently bad for programming because they don't have proper keyboards, but by the same token you'll likely have access to…

Post-PC devices are inherently bad for programming because they don't have proper keyboards

I went on a road trip this summer and continued to do some programming while on it. I found the iPad to be more comfortable than my laptop when sitting in the passenger seat.

A keyboard is pretty hard to beat when you've got a desk in front of you, but when you are left in weird positions, the iPad actually isn't that bad for editing code.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#33

Post by jeiting » Fri, Oct 14, 2011, 11:26 PM UTC

I grew up on Windows PCs, the barrier to entry for tinkering with apps on Windows was way higher than building things with iOS SDK or HTML. I am not worried at all about the children of tomorrow.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#34

Post by raganwald » Fri, Oct 14, 2011, 11:28 PM UTC

The author does sound like a retro-grouch. As I often say to hipsters on fixies, “For you it’s retro, for me it’s nostalgia.” That being said, the post-PC era does not mean that nobody has a PC, it means that people don’t have to buy PCs to do non-PC things. Imagine if you needed a PC to watch television. It’s the same thing with email, FB, and web browsing. Why do I want to know how to format a hard drive to read Hacker News?

Steve Jobs described PCs as being like pickup trucks, and he described post-PC devices as being like all the other vehicles people use, from bicycles to SUVs. None of those made the pickup truck go away, and for that matter there is a sizeable market of people who take pride in driving a pickup truck even though they never haul anything bigger or dirtier than a chest of drawers in it.

PCs will be the same way. Available and cheap if you need one, and also available for those just like the status symbol of being a touch guy who fdisks and bash scripts and thinks curl beats Firefox.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#35

Post by zdw » Fri, Oct 14, 2011, 11:28 PM UTC

We already have this era right now. It's called the "Our computer classes are typing and learning to use MS Office" era.

Nobody really learned how to do anything complex on the computer. CLI's are scary. Programming is hard.

As a result, most computer users, many of whom are very intelligent people who would easily be capable of basic programming and understanding unix pipes and similar are never are exposed to it, and thus it's a foreign language.

Don't blame the iPad. Blame GUI software and the illusion of ease hiding complexity for where we're at.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#36

Post by stesch » Fri, Oct 14, 2011, 11:32 PM UTC

We need Minecraft for iPad. :-)

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#37

Post by buff-a » Fri, Oct 14, 2011, 11:35 PM UTC

"Why I'm scared...."

Don't be scared. Have fun! Make BASIC for the iPad or something silly like that.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#38

Post by nhughes » Fri, Oct 14, 2011, 11:35 PM UTC

Better tools can increase an individual's potential.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#39

Post by neild » Fri, Oct 14, 2011, 11:36 PM UTC

My first computer booted into a BASIC interpreter. That was pretty awesome, and gave me an early window into programming. On the other hand, it didn't have a lot of things. It didn't have a text editor. It didn't have anything other than a BASIC interpreter. I knew that the games I played on that machine weren't written in BASIC, but I didn't know where to go to learn how they were made.

My current computer, made by Apple, comes with interpreters for several languages, all more powerful than BASIC. It comes with text editors. And, best of all, it comes connected to an Internet from which I can not only download interpreters and compilers for all sorts of languages, but find extensive documentation on how to use them.

A child today has access to so much more in the way of programming tools than I did. We live in a glorious golden age of hobbyist programming.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#40

Post by orangecat » Fri, Oct 14, 2011, 11:39 PM UTC

netmute wrote: post #28

You may be 18, but you sound like an ignorant old man. "Back in my day, we wrote our own BASIC programs! That's how we got good!" There will be new and unexpected ways to create and tinker with technology. Don't give in to the "old man thinking", change is good.

change is good

Improved technology is good. Companies attempting to dictate how you're allowed to use that technology is bad.