Over the course of the past few years, we have seen an increase in the number of devices touted as being replacements for the average users desktop (tablets, smart phones, ...)? It is certainly true that these devices are going to have a charm for those who feel that modern computers are too complicated (well they are, but thats a different matter) and who would prefer something "simpler" and with a older brother type figure looking out for them by having an application approval process.
If we continue to go down this path, are we cheating future computer geeks? Should it not, in some sense, be a fundamental right to be able to use your device as you please? Would we have been drawn to programming if it was necessary for us to go through some third party intermediary, because we are not to be trusted with our own machines?
Have you ever tried programming on a touch screen?
Also this 'older brother' is no different to a package management system.
Nothing will change.
Name:
Anonymous2010-07-15 19:43
We're heading towards a cyberpunk world dominated by corporations and evil governments. Our role will be to hack the shit out of those devices, do whatever we want with them and then act subversively to spread the methods of doing it. Companies are actually providing us with a great circumstance for adventure. Isn't it COOL
>>4 Have you ever tried programming on a touch screen?
Well this is the other point. Even if we assume that future commodity devices are going to allow full access to program it, it could still be possible to make it very inconvenient to do so.
Also this 'older brother' is no different to a package management system.
That is true, but I don't have to use the package manager if I don't choose to. The system I was envisioning would be the only way to install software on this mythical future machine.
>>5
I wouldn't go that far, I'm thinking more along the lines "Assume Apple and their iDevices become the industry standard way of doing things" rather than "Imagine you are the protagonist in a shitty Neal Stephenson novel"
We are living in an age of convenience for the computer programmer. 20 years ago, it was a pain in the ass to get together a C compiler (or assembler) and computer to dink together your god-awful program. 10 years ago it was still a pain, but we had GCC 2.95 (which sucked pretty hard if you liked C++) and if you weren't on Linux (which very, very few were) you could BUY an IDE to program your precious computer. SVN wasn't released until later that year so you were stuck with CVS which was about as bad as copying files around every time you made a change to something (or you could do what I did which was use a the beta... and deal with corrupted repositories). Python was still pre-2.0, which if you're a Python programmer, you think of as major suckage. As for Haskellers, at least we had Hugs.
Right now, programming tablets and smartphones and whatnot is about where programming desktops was 10 years ago. You're just soft because you're used to the convenience of desktop & server programming of the 2000s.
>>10
I think you have completely missed the entire point of this thread.
Name:
Anonymous2010-07-15 22:36
Call me when the iPad lets me open it up and tinker with its insides AS A FEATURE. Until I can swap memory drives, replace graphics units, and so forth, on my whim, good old desktop is front and center of my computing utilities (the CRT has been regulated to necessary backup unit to my Plasma, but I never tinkered with monitors as much as I did the motherboard anyway).
My N900 as complicated as my desktop.
About iPhone. So is that true that it's multitasking is like multitasking in windows 3.11? I heard that in windows 3.11 if you don't call some system function, other process will not get CPU time so while(1) whill hang whole system.
Name:
Anonymous2010-07-16 2:47
>>15
WebKit nightly builds already support WebGL. Also the iAds use WebKit.
>>7
Well then fuck your bullshit hipster activism.
Name:
Anonymous2010-07-16 4:13
>>17
It uses preemptive multitasking, not cooperative multitasking like windows 3.11 or Mac OS < X. I think it's like background threads need to be explicitly registered (it doesn't happen by default).
>>18
Webkit nightlies have code for it, but it's turned off by default. It will probably remain turned off by default (and therefore not built for your iPad) until long after Apple decides your iPad is obsolete.
>>22
Oh, so it's more like the way backgrounding works on phones that support backgrounding J2ME apps.