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Comment by cageface | Hacker News Reader

I do have one worry about this though. If this is the only "computer" a lot of people can afford, this is going to mean that the bulk of a generation is going to grow up without access to computers they can program themselves. Maybe I'm just being alarmist, but growing up all our family's computers were also programmable, so I went from basic to c to c++ all on the same machines dad used for Word Processing. Losing all that for the convenience of mobile seems like a questionable trade.

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You might have done more research than me on this, i.e. it's possible that this particular Android device doesn't actually allow it, but generally speaking you actually can do some amount of Android development on an Android device: You can install the Android scripting environment and Python for Android, and hack up Python Android apps right on the phone.

I don't mean to necessarily dispell your argument, though. I fully agree with you that it's really important that the computers we put into people's hands continue to be sustainable, i.e. that they're not just consumption devices but also allow the creation of programs. I probably wouldn't be a software developer today if my computer growing up had been an iPad, say.

Just that I think that of the current crop of smartphone platforms, Android probably comes closest to allowing and enabling hacking.

They will buy shared computers and hack on them. It's what I did growing up in India. Only, there will be a lot more of it, because these guys already have a device they know they can hack on, if they had a "computer".

sho\_hn mentioned the ASE, and I think he's on target. An important thing to remember is that these are Android phones. Unless they're unusually locked down, you can install anything on them through .apk, and the market itself has fewer restrictions. Theoretically, it's just as capable as a computer, albeit with worse input.

You are assuming that people in the developing world can afford a computer just as easily. The importance of having an information device that connects to the internet cannot be overstated in places where education is not the primary concern. Early access to technology will inspire many more kids to learn programming when they can afford one.

I agree there are some strong upsides, but phones make it difficult to participate in a meaningful way at the higher levels of the information economy. They're consumption-oriented devices. Here in Vietnam I see a lot of people that have blown their entire computing budget on a high-end mobile phone and I worry that they may have stunted the growth of some of their talent as a developer, writer, artist etc.

I realize that developers are rare but the money my grandfather invested in a C64 in 1983 has been repaid many, many times over. I'm not sure I would have the same incentive or opportunity to learn now.

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