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Comment by gcheong | Hacker News Reader

The one thing that seems to be missing is the idea of including a programming tutorial with the pc or console. What if your XBox came with a manual called "Programming the XBox - a tutorial introduction"? When I got my Apple II+ it came with a programming manual on Apple BASIC presumably because that was part of the reason for the machine's existence - as an easily accessible platform for people to learn to program on. Nowadays, the idea that the common person would actually want to program their computer seems to have been lost.

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That's because the Apple II+ was produced in an age where the inventors of computers envisioned everyone learning to program computers...as opposed to using them as really expensive fancy typewriters, which is essentially what most people use computers for today.

The only person who has ever had that vision, consistently, is Alan Kay.

The Apple was programmable because it was made by hackers for hackers. There were a few firms that would do software consulting for corporations and institutions, but the notion of consumer software barely existed.

Apple didn't mind it if a few people wrote third-party software and sold it. But I think in the beginning they expected to provide all the important software themselves, just like every computer manufacturer of the era.

And, I speak as somebody who used to hand-compile SHAPE files on the Apple II. These were a sort of vector graphics which you had to first painstakingly draw on graph paper, unspool as a series of draw/turn commands, and then translate into bitmasks according to a lookup table, and then cut those up at seven-bit intervals, and convert those into decimal numbers. This is not something that anyone ever conceived of as a children's toy. Even though some kids (like myself) persevered.

Hm, I wonder if pg's concept of Languages For Smart People applies. Is it possible that kids just don't like kids' languages, like Logo and so on? I have to say that I certainly didn't, although I was exposed to it much later than Alan Kay would have preferred.

>The only person who has ever had that vision, consistently, is Alan Kay.

Don't forget Ted Nelson, whose book (which I bought YAY :D) Computer Lib/Dream Machines features the slogan, "You can and must understand computers now!"

Much of Alan Kay's vision in this department was inherited from Seymore Papert. </pedantry>

iphones kinda come with a 'how to program an iphone app' tutorial, where by come with i mean the internet. presumably most of the comments here are focused more on the existence of tutorials at all, not on implementation. still, the state of open api's is growing tremendously (twitter, facebook<--confusing as all heck but lots of tutorials, greasemonkey).

i don't get what people are talking about. maybe that's because i'm not a video game or linux nerd. i don't like c or assembler or l33t h4x0ring. i mean, i'm not very good at it. but in the past 2 years i've learned how easy it is to program and make things. wow--i can make a twitter app. wow--i can make a robot. wow--i can make a real website. there are so many opportunities that weren't available before, especially in the realm of tutorials and thoughtful introductions.

People tinkering with programming don't care about APIs, they don't even know what an API is. Have you seen how much code is required for a Hello World application for the iPhone or how many people there are complaining about Objective-C's syntax?

BASIC on TI calculators is very popular among kids because they can figure out how to write a program during their math class. You don't need much reference to write a text-based game or a program to help you cheat on a geometry quiz.

i understand the advantage of scripts. my sister loves python now because she can munge csv files much faster now (she's a scientist)

api's allow people to do cool things. they're libraries. kids would find programming on a calculator much more tiresome if they had to write the multiplication method first.

i guess tinkering with a calculator is fun, but that seems kind of old school, and also pretty narrow (in my day the kids with the fancy expensive calculators were the ones taking APs and headed towards private colleges).

writing a 10 line python script that does something with twitter or other social networks--tons more fun than math.

I reckon a smart kid with a couple of days work could have an IM bot that his friends could chat to, and all the kids are into IM now, doing cool stuff that impresses your friends is powerful encouragement to take it further. Even those kids with calculators were doing it to impress other geeks...

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