

Raspberry Pi impressions: the $35 Linux computer and tinker toy - suprgeek
http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/01/raspberry-pi-impressions-the-35-linux-computer-and-tinker-toy/

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domwood
I'm not particularly impressed. The Pi isn't a budget computer, it's not for
watching Nyan Cat or listening to podcasts, it's a computer sandboxing tool.
Yes, it has teething problems but it's been designed on a minuscule budget,
had little time in the wild to actually gain any traction and most definitely
has not had the time required to mature the supported software. This review is
targeting all the wrong things and glossing over what the Pi is actually meant
for.

As a media centre or recreational tool, it's useless, but as an educational
tool it's not to be rubbished. For $35 a go, I'm willing to put up with a lack
of Youtube.

~~~
catch23
I like to think of the RPi as an arduino that can run opencv. Arduinos are
nice little devices for getting started in the electronics world, but when you
need to do real work, it's nice that the RPi is essentially the same price.

~~~
domwood
It's a good way of putting it. Arduinos are probably more directly rewarding
and usable (if you're an Engadget reporter anyway), but if I was setting up an
under 16's Comp Sci class, It'd have to be the Pi, just 'cause it's more..
educational?

~~~
catch23
The GPIO pins of the RPi can act as the same digital/analog pins that your
arduino has, but if you use the arduino, you're confined to using their
processing language to write code.

A typical project for the arduino might be to control a few simple servo
motors to drive a small vehicle. Your comp sci class can now teach in python,
and have python control the GPIO pins to drive the vehicle.

I think kids would be a lot more excited to learn how to program after seeing
how a small $35 device can be used to control a car remotely.

~~~
domwood
Well put. I'm no kid, and it excites me! I think it's important we don't
overlook the levelling effect stuff like this has, the same way Gutenberg took
books to the masses, things like this take the ability to create with
technology to the masses. It's not quite the same level of revolutionary, but
it's still remarkable.

------
saulrh

      because apparently it's the lack of time spent punching
      arcane commands into a terminal that has killed interest
      in computer science
    

Uh, actually. I think that this review is well off, and it really shows here.
The command line is _simple_. Everybody I know learned to program by writing
command-line programs. I mean, seriously, int main(){printf("hello world");}.
That's incredible for education. Review it as a media center or a browser and
you will be disappointed.

~~~
adrianhoward
_The command line is simple._

For certain definitions of "simple" :-)

I'm one of the people who learned of a simple command line (although on a
Sinclair ZX Spectrum - didn't have access to nice little unix boxes in my
day).

And of course it's a fine and good way to learn how to program.

That said - I've seen a few teens take a different route. They got into
MySpace. They started wanted to "tweak" things. That got them into HTML/CSS.
That got them into JavaScript. That got them into coding.

Or I've seen people start with hypercard back when hypercard was the biz.

Or I've seen people start with Director (and later Flash) and move on from
there.

The other thing I saw several times back in the day when I taught development
to non-dev folk was that some folk were really _put off_ by the command line.
I remember we had a course that I taught that was built around an GUI IDEish
environment where folk were building a little SHRDLU type app. At the same
time a subset of the course were on a "beginners C" course that was all
command line driven. The C course was good and well taught - but some folk
_hated_ it, but made superb progress on the IDEish course. It was _freaky_ to
see the same people spend hours ranting about finding files and overstepping
array bounds by one on one course, while successfully building basic NLP apps
on another :-)

Now - I like the RasPi. It's a cute box. But I'm unconvinced that it's going
to make any significant difference in the number or kind of young folk who go
play with development tools. I can't really picture anybody (child or parent)
purchasing one of these who wouldn't _already_ be the type to poke at a home
Linux box or PC in a developerish way.

With the way that cheap PCs get recycled is the price point going to be
enough? It's great for hobbyist hackers - but they were _already_ hobbyist
hackers :-)

~~~
saulrh
All true. I considered mentioning Excel, GUI builders, HTML, and flash (I'm
too young to remember hypercard) but couldn't fit it into the post without
rambling. That said, nearly everybody ends up at the command line eventually.
Javascript error console, learning a second language, building a daemon or a
library, what have you. Having started on GUI builders myself and stalled
until I moved to the command line, I think that other paradigms are good for
catching new programmers' attention, but the command line is where you really
learn what's going on, and you have a slightly better time if you start out
there.

    
    
      (child or parent)
    

The target that matters is probably the high school classroom. $35 (or $100 if
you include a monitor) is small enough to be covered by a bog-standard lab
fee. They can't send a desktop home with every student - too bulky, wouldn't
be homogeneous, even recycles are too expensive - but you can hand them all
rpis.

~~~
adrianhoward
_The target that matters is probably the high school classroom. $35 (or $100
if you include a monitor) is small enough to be covered by a bog-standard lab
fee. They can't send a desktop home with every student - too bulky, wouldn't
be homogeneous, even recycles are too expensive - but you can hand them all
rpis._

Hmm... I guess that makes sense. I'm probably thinking about it from the UK
perspective where I don't think it'll have that same impact. At $35 per-
student still seems like an awful lot of cash per-student to me if the rants
teacher friends give me about getting current text books, etc. are anything to
go by.

Let me put it another way. I think there are a bunch of folk who remember
getting into development because of small, cheap computers with a simple
command line interface. They look around today and don't see those machines,
and think that adding them back will produce an influx of new developers.

But the world is different now. Back then computers were "new". Back then
people were buying those boxes as "the home computer". For games and word
processing and finance as well as "programming" (in 99% of cases they were
never used for writing or financials - but they were _sold_ that way :-) I'm
going to be surprised if the raspi has anything like the impact that the early
Sinclair computers had in the UK for example.

I still hope I'll be surprised though :-)

------
catch23
The community for RPi is small mostly because it's impossible to get one. They
really need to ramp up manufacturing to get the device into more hands. I
ordered one 5 weeks ago from element14 but it looks like I'll still have to
wait another month or two to get mine.

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oylenshpeegul
I like how it said this

    
    
        In fact, simply launching Engadget was enough to pin the CPU and
        bring the OS to a standstill for at least a few minutes.
    

with no apparent irony or shame. I mean, some might take that as a sign that
their website could benefit from some attention.

~~~
anigbrowl
I thought the exact same thing. Engadget is a blog, it ought to be
lightweight.

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TapaJob
For newbies, here's a guide i uploaded yesterday:

[http://moishtech.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/setup-and-run-
asteri...](http://moishtech.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/setup-and-run-asterisk-and-
freebpx-on.html)

~~~
linker3000
I already have Asterisk/FreePBX running on my Pi and had setup an RPi Wiki
page ready for some notes, but work was curtailed due to hospitalization so
would you consider popping in some something, or a link, from your excellent
guide. I was just working on getting DAHDI going to support conferencing and
see how the board coped with that - did you get that far?

~~~
TapaJob
Sure no problem, not familiar with the RPi Wiki, drop me an email at tapajob
at gmail dot com with the details.

