

Is Apple destroying a generation of tech whizzes? - cwan
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/04/innovation

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mkramlich
Here's my take. When I was a kid, yes I had the Apple II, I had HeathKit radio
kits, etc. And yes we now have iPhone, iPad, etc. But folks those all have
SDK's. And Linux exists now. Arduino. Mindstorms. Roomba. All kinds of
electronic and computer kits for experimentation. Make magazine. Mainstream
bookstores now actually have lots of geeky computer magazines and books on the
shelves. And the Internet: tons of free software and documentation, all at
your fingertips -- all of this quite unlike the 70's/early-80's.

So no, I don't think somehow the iPad is part of some new Dark Age. If
anything, we live in a Golden Age for hackers. More so now than back then,
taking into account what I cited above.

~~~
lazugod
The iPhone and iPad are not the machines that ship with an SDK, though. That
lies entirely on the Mac. And yeah, the Mac is definitely part of the hacker's
Golden Age.

~~~
mkramlich
Good point. About Mac, agreed, especially software-wise. Hardware-wise, it may
not be as hackable as the Apple II was, but it comes with way more powerful
and interesting and useful software.

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jswinghammer
They'll just do something else. I think it's a mistake to assume that if kids
aren't exposed to what we were exposed to as kids then they won't learn
anything. I could see kids writing iPhone apps to impress their friends these
days. I know I'd be impressed if my kid did something equivalent to that when
she's that age.

I probably would have when I was 16 or 17 just for that reason-let alone the
fact that it's cool.

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patio11
I think the single device which got most people into programming in my
generation was the Nintendo Entertainment System, and I do not remember it as
being a playground of hackability. It just showed six year olds that if you
ate your carrots and studied math you would eventually be able to do magic.

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stse
In my opinion the Commodore/Amiga and later the PC computers created a lot
more programmers than the Nintendo Entertainment System did. The North
European game industry (DICE, Starbreeze, Remedy, etc.) was more or less based
on the demoscene i.e. hacking for fun, not math education. Sure, the NES
inspired a lot of people. But the real questions is: What if the NES would
have been hackable?

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makecheck
Actually, it might give students a real incentive to tinker: "hey, you might
make thousands of dollars on the App Store". Parents? Spend $100 for a curious
kid's birthday to get a dev kit, it would be a great investment. Especially if
it takes away from time they'd spend doing passive things like watching TV.

~~~
spc476
Back in 1985, I remember bugging my Mom to get me the Radio Shack Assembler
for the Color Computer and a book on Assembly language programming and I
wouldn't be surprised if she spent around $60 or so back then. Using this
calculator ( <http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/> ) that works out to
between $100 to $200 in 2009 dollars (depending upon which inflation scale is
used).

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pcarmichael
The iPad isn't going to destroy tinkering. The whole "oh no one will tinker
and no one will want to be a software engineer" complaint is getting old. If
closed platforms abound, tinkerers will create an open and adaptable one.
There is a wealth of tools and systems available to tinkerers today.
Widespread adoption of the iPad is not going to change that. iPads aren't
going to destroy the hobbyist electronics market. And as for the software
development - what's stopping someone from providing a good programming
experience that is web based? (surely someone has to be building a web based
IDE, say, that compiles from whatever language to javascript?)

~~~
hammerdr
280atlas.com

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sferik
I've always believed the biggest single moment of destruction of future
programmers is when Microsoft stopped shipping BASIC (plus the full source
code of the games GORILLA.BAS and NIBBLES.BAS) with DOS/Windows.

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omellet
I loved Gorillas. But Windows ships with .NET, including a C# and VB.Net
compiler. I'd rather have hacked on that than BASIC, nostalgia value
notwithstanding.

~~~
jlangenauer
Now yes - as I much prefer Ruby, C++ and a wee bit of Haskell these days. But
to learn? Absolutely not. The beauty of BASIC was that everything was simple
enough that a 10 year old kid could comprehend it: type in instructions, and
run them. No compilers, no CLR, no API calls. All of those things make the
barrier to entry too high.

I started out writing things like:

    
    
      10 PRINT "Jason"
      20 GOTO 10
    

The reason why that's so important is that it can be comprehended, and it
provides a base to which more knowledge can be added _in very small pieces_.
Once the hypothetical 10-year-old has grasped the above - and there are a few
fundamental concepts to grasp in there, they can start adding to that. Say:

    
    
      10 FOR I = 1 TO 10
      20 PRINT "Jason"
      30 NEXT
    

And from there, it's just a matter of learning more and more until you're
dealing with abstract syntax trees, NP-hard problems, functional languages,
multi-threaded programming and whatever else we get to deal with.

But if that first step is too high, many people will never be able to climb
it.

~~~
ido
That's true, but these days most people have always-on broadband internet
connections, so prebundling with windows is not as important as it once was.

I don't think something like Processing is any harder to get into than basic
was. I started programming with GW-BASIC, LOGO and QBasic myself - the first
thing that I thought when I started playing around with Processing is that it
is remarkably similar to a modern QBasic.

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kevintwohy
This is honestly one of the most poorly-written 'articles' I've ever read:
"The process of simplification of consumer goods in response to demand is what
has delivered the enormous productivity gains that generate much of the wealth
of modern life."

What does that even mean? How about this: "Think about light switches, for
example. Homebuilders, these days, put all the wiring inside the walls where
you can't see it, and power is generated miles away from sources. Most people
couldn't generate a current if their life depended on it; they just know that
if you flick the switch the light turns on and if it doesn't you change the
bulb or check the circuit breaker (the equivalent of hitting restart) before
calling in the experts."

I know that dumbing ideas down to the point of meaninglessness is sorta the
status quo of mainstream journalism, but at least have a little respect for
your readers...

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jsz0
It's naive to think these kids will commit themselves into any one device.
Maybe they'll have a tablet but they'll also have access to a desktop or
laptop, probably a gaming console and a SmartPhone too. Of course they'll also
have nearly constant access to the Internet which is more than most of us had
at that age and we turned out just fine.

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logicalstack
While I generally enjoy a Cory Doctorow opinion I can't help but to think he
is off on this one. The iPad is analogous to a newspaper, both used for
consuming content and both gated from seeing how they work on the inside. The
Apple IIgs' of today are Arduino's, FPGAs, and the like. Mostly or fully open
source and customizable.

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markkoberlein
I initially thought the same thing, but then I realized that the iPad may
actually inspire more kids to become hackers and programmers.

They may start with the iPad because it's the number one tablet but that
doesn't mean they will stay with the iPad.

Future hackers will probably be inspired by the iPad and want to figure out
how it works and how to program for it. Then these hackers may get tired of
Apple's tightly controlled platform and may move to an open platform like
Android to hack on.

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biotech
At a family event recently, my 13 y.o. cousin was playing with his new iPod
Touch. So I started asking him questions about it, and he tells me about how
he's going to root it, going into some decent detail. I was pretty impressed!
It just goes to show, Apple engineers can't keep kids from learning about
their iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad, no matter how hard they try.

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angusgr
"If I had a clunkier technology in front of me, I might learn more about
programming"

This article seems to pursue an odd dichotomy, that the platform can either be
openable or slick - never both.

Surely those two aren't completely mutually exclusive.

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kijuhygfhjk
No - because they are expensive. It's like claiming that Mercedes is
destroying the hot-rod industry because kids can't get the engine management
codes.

Macs were never for hackers now iApple isn't - so what?

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orangecat
_Macs were never for hackers_

Sure they are. Macs are full Unix workstations that can also run Office and
Photoshop, with a much better UI than Linux. The meme that Apple's computers
are deliberately unfriendly to hackers has never been true, until the iPhone
and iPad.

~~~
olefoo
Wait a second, a challenge, an obstacle, an opponent.

This is not being unfriendly to hackers.

This is like one of those cat toys with the wand and the feather at the end to
a rambunctious kitten. In some respects it's the most hacker friendly device
out there right now because of the bragging rights it creates.

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petercooper
I didn't realize _everyone_ would buy iPads for their kids to the exclusion of
everything else. It must be like the 80s when Speak and Spell destroyed that
generation of tech whizzes.

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jdminhbg
People who look at the iPad and declare the death of hacking remind me of the
people who in the middle of the internet boom saw the AOL-TW merger as the
death of independent content.

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adelevie
Are "apps" so bad? In a perfect world, everything would work great on all
standards-compliant browsers. But here I am, using Google Docs on Opera and
it's destroying my homework.

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ciscoriordan
As far as operating systems go, MS-DOS did more to encourage my technical
knowledge than Windows ever did, and I stopped using DOS around the time
Windows 98 came out.

But people who are drawn to tinkering probably wind up with better uses for
their mental energy when they have easy-to-use operating systems. Pretty much
everyone who has an iPad also has access to a machine they can do development
on.

~~~
whatusername
"Pretty much everyone who has an iPad also has access to a machine they can do
development on."

For now.

To be honest - it feels ridiculous that the iPhone seems to need a computer so
much. And I would imagine the iPad (or perhaps the
iPadHD/iPadCamera/iPadNextGeneration) will feel slightly the same way.

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kierank
This blog post (thankfully the economist hasn't published it as an article) is
just another excuse to mention the word "iPad".

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ww520
Apple IIgs opened the programming world to me back then. I have to give a big
thanks to Apple

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miratom
"Apple is watering down computing" has been the principle argument governing
the PC v. Mac holy war since the Macintosh made its debut. Nothing has
changed.

~~~
cubicle67
which is odd considering every mac ships with Apache, Python, Ruby and who
knows what else _installed_ , ready to go. Windows ships with... (honestly, I
have no idea)

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nym
Yes.

~~~
mahmud
How exactly? care to elaborate?

~~~
nym
No.

