Comment by odshoifsdhfs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by odshoifsdhfs | Hacker News Reader

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I think this is because you are thinking as a programmer/something.

Folks now have web page editors in their phones/tablets. Drawing apps, etc.

When I was 16, yeah, I want to make a webpage about WWE/F, so I had to spend days learning table based layouts and how to ftp files to a server (and find one).

Now I (my son) can open his phone and he has various tools to do so. He can share/post pictures of someone doing a full nelson and write about it, and get it up on the web in minutes vs days.

Just because he didn't have to learn 45 different incantations at the command line, doesn't mean he isn't creative, he just doesn't need to slog through programming to do it. (He is learning python though)

Think about it as frameworks, when we started, we needed to learn it all to make any kind of decent page, now most folks here would use bootstrap/material ui/whatever, or react/rails vs writing all the css by hand, fighting with all the problems it brings, configure perl scripts to be able to send an email from it, etc etc.

True - I am thinking of it as a programmer. And I wasn't entirely clear. You can create lots of wonderful things on tablets, phones, locked-down computers, etc. but it relies on someone else making the tools. On my computer I can use a program, and then make a program just like it. On a tablet I can use an app, but if I want to create an app I need to use a computer. It's one layer of abstraction removed.

The comments here have been a helpful reminder that creativity is very much alive and well! I do worry about how many people would think "This app is cool! I want to learn how to make them" but stop because the device for consumption is different from the device for creation.

Really dating myself here but the very first programs I used were ones from a magazine I typed in to a little TRS-80 pocket computer from Radio Shack myself (I'm not 100, really, I just started young and had an encouraging grandpa), and in the process realized "hmmm I could change this line and get a different output, cool!". I think that's about the lowest possible barrier between consumption and creation.

On the other hand, I learned very, very slowly compared to now, in large part because it meant getting a magazine or reading a book, and having nobody to ask when things weren't clear. On the whole it probably is easier, now that I think about it, but only if you're motivated. Maybe that's OK - people who want to can still learn to rebuild a transmission, even if most drivers don't.

A few things that would help this issue 1) a mobile-first IDE - app and responsive website (that you can share links to) with a great interface for mobile that makes use of strengths like touch screen, while getting round the weaknesses of screen size and lack of physical keyboard by not relying on typing out full words and not using the convention of having entire files open in a tab. (eg a single function or code block on screen at a time). Preferably with accounts you can use to log in from whichever device suits at any given point 2) games and other apps that are made to be "modded" that link to that IDE - modding is a big way that PC gamers get into coding these days, it's the art of making add-ons to games - if this where a common thing with mobile games and apps you wouldn't just have the PC gamer crowd modding 3) If programming and development communities where easier to find from a more diverse set of social networks, more people who enjoy expressing creativity with people, would find out that they can create this way as well

Not sure what a TRS-80 is as I don't think we had them here, but I had an old Spectrum and did the same :)

But there are tools on mobile/web to create those things also. I've been researching and trying to get something that is intuitive to work on tables to program web apps (it started web based, but now moving it to mobile as I think it matches the visual paradigm better).

There are various tools for kids to learn to program creating games (Scratch is probably the most well known) but other visual programming apps also.

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