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Comment by pgbovine | Hacker News Reader

i've never seen this done successfully. what's your motivation for doing this? so that you can code on the go? why not get a tiny laptop?

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My motivation is I have a myriad of devices that cost practically nothing and require no configuration or upkeep, that can also open pages on the internet and connect to the same monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Replacing my laptop later this year will cost ~$2k, along with endless time and attention and so much otherwise-useless knowledge to keep it operating and secure and configured. I get bugged every day by software asking me to watch an update download. Every time I boot my computer 2 or 3 different game clients somehow all have 50 - 100 meg of updates.

None of that helps me write web apps.

> Every time I boot my computer 2 or 3 different game clients somehow all have 50 - 100 meg of updates.

You should start by setting up a proper environment on your PC that is "distraction free". You are not going to be more productive on a phone when it comes to writing web apps. All is required on a PC is a cli with SSH and a browser. I'm saying that as I'm typing on a $250 dollar laptop that I use everyday for Java development, and it still boots under 10 seconds on windows 10.

That's.... not really "on your smartphone".

I think the distinction only matters if the goal is to code with nothing but your phone, if you went all in you'd continue to use your monitor, keyboard and mouse so they're pretty much interchangeable.

Microsoft Touch Develop is the only thing that comes to mind here: https://www.touchdevelop.com/

I always have my phone. I always have a few side projects that languish due to time constraints. There are so many blocks of 5 or 10 minutes where I could be productive if only it were possible to write code on my phone.

Exactly; that's the thing. All those annoying waiting moments you don't have your laptop (or your laptop doesn't fit like we have in the EU at least when you fly within the EU with some airlines); you are sitting there for hours with a Kindle or smartphone in hand and it would be nice to be productive. That's the major reason I actually got a pandora in the first place. To not have that issue at least.

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