We live in a world where anyone with $25 can purchase a rasberry Pi and hook it up to a television/monitor. General purpose computing is more accessible than ever before. And if people want a locked down device why shouldn't they have a device that actually meets their needs?Unless the need for programs dried up and ran away, we will always need(and have) general purpose computation.
I'm sure a lot of people here constantly fix the computers for their friends and family. Tablets and smartphones help decrease the amount of help they need. isn't that a good thing? Or is Doctrow scared of becoming irrelevant when hackers are no longer needed as techno-priests?
You cannot simply buy the RPi at a normal retailer, unlike (smart)phones, laptops, (smart)TVs etc. etc. This does not mean the RPi isn't a fantastic little machine or that it doesn't offer new possibilities. However, there is a world of difference between a developer board (that doesn't have a case, operating system, built-in storage etc.) and a ready-made consumer article.
General purpose computers become rarer with an increase in phones and tablets, all of them locked down. This is the making of a niché, and I think it is dishonest to simply assume people are worried about losing their status. Is the reduction in sales of general purpose computers the end of the world? Perhaps not. Should it prompt closer scrutiny and some concern? I think it should.
General purpose computers become rarer with an increase in phones and tablets, all of them locked down.
But the reason this happens is that most people, even when the computer they owned really was a general-purpose computer, didn't use it as one. Anyone reading or commenting on HN is an outlier; we actually need a general-purpose computer, because we need to be able to do things with it that its designers and builders never thought of. But most people don't. Most people want a small and pretty much stable selection of apps, and if those apps are there, they don't care whether or not the device they're running on could also run an infinite number of other apps.
This works until one of that "stable selection of apps" tells the user that the version of their OS is not supported anymore, and that they would have to update. If the device is locked, your update paths are limited. Just because not everyone uses all functionality doesn't mean I have to condone removing that functionality entirely. And it does not mean that it might not burn a user at some point in the future.
As an anecdote: we have an iPhone 3G in our household, a phone that became progressively worse with certain updates after the release of both the 3GS and 4, to the point that it is nearly unusable for surfing now. This leaves me with exactly two options: stop using it as it was meant to be used, or buy a new phone. And for the other camp: in order to get an inofficial version of Android that is newer than Gingerbread on my phone, I would have to reformat its internal storage, which I can only do since it is unlocked by now. However, even that is not entirely without risk, and it is not supported.
This works until one of that "stable selection of apps" tells the user that the version of their OS is not supported anymore, and that they would have to update.
Oh, I entirely agree; I've been bitten by this myself (and on desktops/laptops, not on mobile devices), and it's one of the main reasons I don't have an iDevice and don't use many apps on my Android tablet.
I'm just saying that you and I are outliers; most users appear not to care that their device is locked down and they will sooner or later be forced to upgrade. (Many of them are used to upgrading every time their phone carrier comes out with a shiny new toy anyway.)
And also because general purpose computers tend to become unusable after a few years, because people don't know how to uninstall all the crapware that made its way onto their device and chokes up system resources.
Android phones are not locked down, at least not nearly to the same degree as iOS devices. I can pretty much do anything I want with my phone.
As long as i can still buy a general-purpose computer for $200 that can do/run anything I want, or pay for processor cycles like a utility like I can with AWS, this will seem like computing purist's paranoia. It's a lot like Stallman's regular speechifying, when it strikes me that while he's not completely wrong, he's not really right either.
I don't know about you, but I had to void my warranty in order to be able to use adblocking, proxy servers and run a ssh server on my phone. I would hardly call that "not locked down".
If you try to buy an iPad at the Apple Store, the Specialist you buy it from will ask you about your intended usage and make it very clear that it's not a general purpose computer, and that you probably need a computer if you don't already have one.
I think my worry is that with the prevalence of locked down device that are now on the market, trying to even purchase a general purpose computer might become difficult.
Yes, if you are inclined you can buy a Raspberry Pi, but equally your kids could go from cradle to grave, never having touched a general purpose computer.
I see this as a problem. How do we inspire even a few kids in each generation to take up programming, if the only computer they've ever used is un-programmable.
I've blogged about this somewhere but I forget the link.
Let's not rely on nostalgia to inform our concerns. I remember what it was like to grow up with a general purpose computer. It ran closed-source software and there were no programming environments, resources, or classes easily available to a kid.
It's true that some kids learned to program on their home computers. They did so against incredible odds.
Today's kids are surrounded by cheap, plentiful, powerful computers, and awash in information about programming on the Internet and in bookstores and libraries and schools. It has never been easier for a kid to learn to program, if they want to.
> How do we inspire even a few kids in each generation to take up programming, if the only computer they've ever used is un-programmable.
This is like asking how do we inspire kids to be writers if none of the books they've ever read have been typewriters. There is more inspiration for kid programmers today than there ever has been in the history of the world, because they are immersed in more computing than any previous generation.
>How do we inspire even a few kids in each generation to take up programming, if the only computer they've ever used is un-programmable.
I think for most users, the experiences of using a programmable v.s. non-programmable device are about even in terms of inspiration. An iPad is just as likely to spawn an interest in games as a regular PC (perhaps more, as it's more approachable). The biggest problem is that locked down devices are poor programming platforms, but getting a basic platform to program is pretty cheap and easy, so I don't see that as a big problem.
>but getting a basic platform to program is pretty cheap and easy, so I don't see that as a big problem.
A basic platform to program with is pretty cheap, but it'll _probably_ only run programs on a general purpose computer. I'm pretty sure you can't build iOS apps on a RPi.
I guess my big problem is that you can't build an iOS app on an iOS device. I see this as a problem given the prevalence of locked down devices now on the market.
Device cost is only part of the equation. If 99% of the devices out there run iOS, there are real accessibility and support problems - websites will use iOS-specific layout, applications will only be available for iOS, devices will only have 'drivers' or dedicated apps for iOS, connectors will be designed to hook up to iDevices, etc. Obviously we aren't in that scenario right now, but the Windows monoculture made it clear that all these things can and will happen.
Low-cost manufacturers can thrive (comparatively) in that kind of environment by selling their devices for $25, but customers will suffer because their general purpose computers will be useless for non-hackers.
I'm sure a lot of people here constantly fix the computers for their friends and family. Tablets and smartphones help decrease the amount of help they need. isn't that a good thing? Or is Doctrow scared of becoming irrelevant when hackers are no longer needed as techno-priests?