[HN Gopher] Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using ... ___________________________________________________________________ Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone Author : andygmb Score : 305 points Date : 2021-07-21 08:05 UTC (14 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.linkedin.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.linkedin.com) | perilunar wrote: | Honestly, a smartphone is more powerful than any of the computers | I used to learn HTML, JS or CSS. Better screen resolution too. | The main problem is screen _size_. | | Also, TIL you can buy screen magnifiers for under $20. e.g. | https://www.amazon.com/s?k=screen+magnifier | mullen wrote: | This definitely falls under the category of "Why Did I Not | Think of This?" | neonate wrote: | https://archive.is/aCdT3 | tomaszs wrote: | I have heard about it. And wanted to try it out. Now I am | preparing posts with CSS tips on a phone. It is possible to learn | the big three on a mobile. | Ostrogodsky wrote: | I would only say that coming from a poor third world country too | I am a little less gullible, or using the more PC term my degree | of belief stretches a lot when reading posts like these.People in | western rich countries trust more, that can be a blessing or a | sin. | pietrovismara wrote: | Reminds me of Kintaro Oe in "Golden Boy". He learns to program on | a fake laptop built with cardboard. | indigodaddy wrote: | The LinkedIn author states in the LinkedIn post comment where | someone referenced this HN post, that they are Indian, not | Nepalese. Perhaps the title should be amended. | fiftyfifty wrote: | This is why I think it sucks when device manufacturers like Apple | and to a lesser extent Google (Google Play has been more open to | allowing development related apps in their store) restrict the | kinds of apps that can be downloaded from their store. Smart | phones are every bit a generic computing device as a PC, and for | many people world wide it's the only one they have access too. | For companies like Apple to say nope, you can take selfies with | this thing, but you are absolutely not allowed to upload an IDE | or code editor to our app store is really taking away | opportunities like the one in this story. | bitwize wrote: | That is some hardcore hackery-dackery. It takes dedication and a | real desire to learn to put up with such adverse conditions. | | I know a chap who, for a while, had spotty access to a PC except | for the locked down one he had at work in his (non-programming) | job. He passed the long hours making tiny JavaScript hacks in the | URL bar. | ansible wrote: | While I don't mean to slight the front-end dev's dedication, | there are more than a few of us who learned BASIC programming | in the late 1970's and early 1980's... without access to any | computing device at all. | | We would study BASIC from manuals and other books, and pour | over program listings in magazines. Then we would write out | programs on paper, and "interpret" them in our heads to see if | they worked correctly. | | Some home computers like the Timex / Sinclair were relatively | inexpensive ($100 USD in 1981, $330 in today's dollars), they | weren't _cheap_ even then, and that was the very lowest-end | device possible (4Kbytes RAM, no storage whatsoever). An Apple | II with a floppy drive and montior would run into the thousands | of dollars back then. | egeozcan wrote: | When I first got my hands on a computer late 90s, other | people should have seen my fathers facial expression when he | saw his 10 year old son typing "weird code" into a terminal | window at a "lightning" 1-2chars/sec speed :) I didn't have | the pocket money to buy expensive foreign computer magazines, | so I was studying at the book store when we went to the mall. | | People all complain that the hardware is too closed these | days, but I get emotional when I see kids having access to | such inexpensive hardware. Amazing times. | bitwize wrote: | I'm aware of this. I'm to understand that Woz wrote Apple | Integer BASIC, more or less on paper, before he even built | the computers it would run on. | yesenadam wrote: | I have a similar history. What amazes me is that I used to | write in assembly language for the Z80, plugging in the hex | machine code numbers inline into BASIC and Turbo Pascal | programs, and I never saw an assembly manual, instruction | list or book, and never had an assembler! Somehow picked up | instructions one at a time from magazine columns, wrote | assembly on paper and hand-translated into machine code. It's | _such_ a different world now, being able to order online, if | not download instantly, just about everything. I came across | Rodney Zaks ' _Programming the Z80_ about 10 years ago in a | second hand shop and it was like seeing the Holy Grail--a | legendary book I never imagined I 'd ever see a copy of, much | less own. | nmfisher wrote: | I learned BASIC and bash from library books as late as the | early 90s. | | Nowhere near as good as the real thing, but I remember loving | it nonetheless. | andi999 wrote: | I have difficulties understanding this. I learned Basic ard | 84 on a c64. I don't understand why anybody would learn it | without access to any device. I mean what would even get one | interested in it/how would one know this exists? | allenu wrote: | I learned BASIC via books myself. I learned about it | through the Commodore PET at school and some Apple IIes | later on. I didn't have a computer at home, but I'd often | write simple little text "games" in BASIC (things where you | just enter your name and it asks you questions). I didn't | have access to the computers at home all the time, so my | situation was not one where I knew I'd get a chance to try | it on a computer. | | We eventually got a PC at home later on, but I already | loved working out programming logic. With the PC, I also | remember one time writing up some assembly in the library | at school with pen and paper and eventually typing it in | when I got home. | ansible wrote: | > _I have difficulties understanding this. I learned Basic | ard 84 on a c64. I don 't understand why anybody would | learn it without access to any device._ | | You don't understand my youthful obsession with computers? | Or you don't understand that my family couldn't afford a | C64 when they first came out? | | I hopefully don't have to explain the 2nd reason to you. | | As for the first, I don't quite know how to explain that. | As I learned of what computers where, and how they worked, | it just overtook my ambitions in life. Being a firefighter | or astronaut could just not compare to being able to | command a machine to perform complex tasks at my bidding. I | wanted to work on robots, I wanted to make an AI that could | converse with me, I wanted to explore strange new worlds, | and more. | andi999 wrote: | I understand a youthful obsession and I understand not | being able to afford a computer. I can understand if | there is a slight access to a computer (either in a shop | selling those not minding the kids playing ard, or a | distant acquaintance of an uncle allowing for 30 min | screen time every month or needing to bribe the grounds | keeper for access to the schools it room), but I have a | hard time understanding zero access and doing pen and | paper programming. I mean why chose basic and not | assemble when choosing without a computer. | | How did you learn what computers were? Did you see it on | a TV show about computers? | stan_rogers wrote: | Computers weren't new. The idea that an ordinary person | might have access to one, or even own one, even if that | "ordinary person" wasn't you, _was_ new at the time. And | there was more than a little excitement about those | turnkey machines you could just buy and use, assuming you | had the money. There were books and magazines, | educational TV shows, etc. I picked up BASIC long before | I ever saw a computer that ran BASIC. (I did have the | opportunity to try a little bit of FORTRAN using | MarkSense cards on a 1401 in the year before the MIPS | Altair 8800 was announced as a kit in Popular | Electronics. We 'd send the card bundles away, and a | couple of weeks later we'd get a printout, usually of | syntax errors, along with punched versions of the cards | we'd sent off. One would quickly learn to pay a little | more attention writing and mentally running code.) With | BASIC, it's very easy to picture what's going on without | knowing much at all about the hardware. With assembly | language, not so much. | ddalex wrote: | Having grown up in communist Romania, I had this experience | - the first computer I toyed with was a Spectrum clone, | which we had at the school, and had access to it for about | 2h/week. I definitely knew what it is and how to use it, | but I couldn't spend time actually developing even simple | programs on it. | | So I had a copied manual at home, and a couple of magazines | with listings, and I would write my programs in basic on | paper, and emulate them in my head, to verify they work. | Then when I had access to the computer at the school I | would use that time to type in the program and really run | it. | | Thankfully my parents were able to buy for my own Spectrum | clone after a while (when they become cheaper/more | affordable, because the PCs finally were being imported, so | a lot of local companies would move from their Spectrums to | PCs) and then I could spend innumerable hours building | simple move-the-cursors games directly on the hardware. | VMtest wrote: | not long ago I read about it, somehow I was researching | about old computers and old games | | 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15607791 | | Another commenter in this post | | 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27904224 | fakedang wrote: | Early 80s?? We were doing that stuff up to the mid 00s in my | school. Honestly I found it extremely unappealing because you | could not get the result immediately, but in the long run, it | helps to think about the working logic behind codes instead | of simply shooting in the dark and debugging. | hyperpallium2 wrote: | But a phone is a computer... | | Though Google is slowly killing apps like termux. | arvigeus wrote: | When I was learning programming, all I had was a big book called | "Thinking in C", a notepad (pen and paper), and lots of free | time. Few days a week I will go to the library to retype my | solutions from the exercises. | raxxorrax wrote: | It must be a horrible work of hackery to turn a smartphone based | on iOS or Android into a useful device. | | Kudos to him. If he was able to do that, then development | shouldn't put up much barriers anymore. | | I would totally buy him a decent PC though. | Bayart wrote: | Android's pretty plug and play in that regard thanks to USB | OTG, and you've got a lot of the Linux world amenities on top | of it (especially if you're rooted). | saurik wrote: | FWIW it really isn't that hard on Android, as you can just | install Termux and then install stuff like clang or the Android | SDK tooling. For a while a couple years ago I was doing this | and using a foldable bluetooth keyboard; the setup was small | enough to fit in my jacket pocket and felt a bit more | convenient than carrying around a laptop. | stuaxo wrote: | I tried this and it was a bit of a pain. Partly because the | device didn't have enough storage, but stuff like finding a | decent editor was hard, and just about everything needs some | tweak to work. | magnio wrote: | My experience is not that bad. It's Linux after all, of | course you're gonna need to tweak something. I spent a few | hours customizing Neovim with Coc.nvim and were off to go. | | It's kinda crazy that Termux on my phone runs smoother than | any terminal on my laptop. (TBF it does have more RAM and | faster storage!) | nicoburns wrote: | The more impressive part is working with such a tiny screen I | think. That takes some real perseverance. | amelius wrote: | Aren't there already many folks looking at their smartphone | screen for significant amounts of time every day? | cute_boi wrote: | actually working on tiny screen is not that hard tbh. When | my macbook was under repair I used to use microsoft rdp to | connect to other pc. | | The good thing is i can use external keyboard and mouse. | And screen was somewhat okay. The only issue was battery as | I keyboard + mouse drains battery a lot. | pedrocr wrote: | It's gotten to the ridiculous state where common phones | will very often have more screen resolution than 14'' | laptops. So as long as you have a way to comfortably stand | close enough you won't be lacking for pixels. Eye strain | from focusing that close will probably be higher though. | egeozcan wrote: | But in this case, they just have a low resolution phone, | AFAICT. | pedrocr wrote: | This is clearly an extreme case, and quite impressive. I | was commenting on the general case of developing on a | phone screen. 2300x1080 phone screens are now on ~200$ | phones, while getting more than 1920x1080 on a 14'' | laptop is difficult and gets you a "why would you even | want more than FHD on a 14'' laptop" comment | consistently. At least 16:10 is now becoming more common | so 1920x1200 is growing a bit. | [deleted] | deregulateMed wrote: | >iOS | | Apple doesn't advertise much outside the United States, and | given Android is significantly more developer friendly, there | isn't a reason for a student to learn on iOS. | wrboyce wrote: | I see your name every time Apple are mentioned, did they hurt | you or something? | | If you don't want to buy their gear that is fine but this | crusade you're on is boring. | deregulateMed wrote: | Yep. I'm against unethical behavior. Seems like HN | generally agrees. | | I'm also against medical cartels too. | | I don't like Samsung or Nintendo for the same reasons I | don't like Apple. | | Any specific questions? | kaeruct wrote: | What is unethical about Nintendo that you mention it | among Apple and Samsung? Honest question here. | paublyrne wrote: | I'm in a train station in Berlin right now and every | billboard is Apple. | malinens wrote: | This is how i started programming 17 years ago in WAP/J2ME era. | | I either programmed on the phone or I went to local library | yawaworht1978 wrote: | Oh my, imagine writing css , well, or any of the components on a | mobile phone, let alone running the codes in sandboxes. This is | horrible. | beebeepka wrote: | Still better than nothing which is the point. Consider yourself | lucky if you have much better options available. | | Only a fool would not take such an option only because people | in other countries can grt PCs and hook them to their fiber | services. | saeranv wrote: | Recently I was looking to donate some money to Sri Lankan | charities and was talking to various groups, asking them what | their most urgent needs were and where I should allocate money. | | One charity was based in the Mullithivu region[1] which is an | impoverished rural region in Sri Lanka. The kids there don't | neccessarilly have access to the internet or computers at home, | so with COVID are left behind as the schools move towards some | form of digital teaching. | | I thought it was interesting that one of the most effective | solutions for this that the charity found was to purchase USB | keys loaded with digital curriculums. Apparently while the homes | don't have computers, almost all have Smart TVs (to access tamil | language programming?) and thus the kids could follow along with | school as long as they had their USB keys. The director of the | charity also mentioned they were also trying to get the | curriculum through phones (he mentioned Viber explicitly, but I'm | not sure why it needed to be limited to that), which was another | device all families had access to. | | We ended up purchasing USB keys for an entire school ($5 each) | and money to fund digital content creation. I wonder if there | would be a big impact on education in these areas if someone | could work out the UX/UI/ergonomics of teaching through mobile | phone. Or whether it's just a better idea to fund a | infrastructure (school computer labs). The advantage of the | former, I suppose, is one could just do it and see if it has an | effect. | | [1] http://careforedu.org/ | gurubavan wrote: | Thanks for mentioning this! I've also been looking to donate to | Sri Lankan charities in the north-east but it has been | difficult to understand which charities are still operating and | have a legitimate impact. | pjmlp wrote: | On the same subject, and without wanting to steel main subject. | | "Developing ON (not for) a Nokia Feature Phone with Elvis | Chidera" | | https://podtail.com/podcast/hanselminutes/developing-on-not-... | hemanta212 wrote: | Sadly, this is how things are for many of us students, I | currently study bachelors in CS here in Nepal and for me and some | of my friends stuck in our villages (lockdown isn't still over | here yet), we have been doing C assignments using editors | avalialble in the playstore. | | Seeing these apps have millions of downloads, we're definitely | not alone and I have seen many indian and other south asian | friends do the same. | | My personal setup includes a 2$ stand and A samsung J7 phone | paired with a keyboard over OTG cable. Since I have been doing | this for few years I have a pretty complex setup of termux, a | student credit powered VM from Azure, emacs. I have managed to | develop python cli apps, jupyter notebooks, even flutter | development using some port forwarding hacks. | Leparamour wrote: | This is all very interesting. Good luck with your studies! | raihansaputra wrote: | Can you share what apps you use? I saw an editor on the tweet | image, So I guess there's some different setups using different | apps out there. | | Chrome on Android also has DevTools internally (through | chrome://inspect when you connect a debuggable android to a | laptop). I don't know whether that's possible to expose or not | on the phone, but would be very helpful. | | VSCode/Monaco should also be "runnable" as they're running on | JS / V8. That will open a lot of extensibility. | yorwba wrote: | Chrome's DevTools don't have a mobile UI AFAIK, so the best | available option for debugging _in_ a mobile browser is | probably Liriliri 's Eruda https://eruda.liriliri.io/ which | is a kind of embeddable debugger that runs as part of the | website you're debugging. | hemanta212 wrote: | For most starting out it's editors in playstore, There are | editors for different langugages, I started with the pydroid | editor. There you can write code and hit compile to show the | output. As traversing menus by hand gets quite hard, the next | approach is probably to learn termux and terminal as | everything is keyboard driven. | | I have tried jupyternotebooks, vscode on browser but the | small screen is the real blocker and you can barely see the | editing field. | | I use termux for everything now, for websites I just open a | localhost port and see it in my browser or do live reload in | spare phone. Video and images are also redirected by the | termux to respective apps. | raihansaputra wrote: | Yeah, desktop oriented apps such as jupyternotebook and | VSCode will need UI adjustments to make it usable on the | phone. | | That's cool to know that you can run localhost and expose | the port to another phone. | | Thanks for sharing. Wishing you the best on your journey! | victornomad wrote: | wow! I'm glad that termux exist, it's such an amazing tool! | | I don't know if you might find it interesting but I made an | open source coding tool and framework for Android that is | pretty fun and fast to use. You can code using the phone or a | computer using a remote editor throught Wifi (no internet | required). | | It comes with lots of examples and remixing them is quite fun | to get quick and nice results. | | It's called PHONK https://phonk.app | pwdisswordfish8 wrote: | The "compile it your self" link in the README | (https://github.com/victordiaz/PHONK/blob/master) is a 404. | (also, it should be "yourself"), and the landing page site | header is cut off on mobile, so the GitHub link doesn't show | up. | victornomad wrote: | thanks for pointing it out! | yorwba wrote: | Based on the description "Connect your computer and Android | to the same WIFI network" I'd assume that you need at least | two devices, but from your comment I gather that's not the | case? Maybe you should clarify that on the landing page. | victornomad wrote: | Yes, it's possible just using the Android device. Thanks | for the suggestion, I'll try to improve the the landing | page and make it a bit more clear :) | slim wrote: | Install termux. Learn vim | hemanta212 wrote: | Yep, I have to thank my conditions for forcing me to learn | linux stuffs. As much as I would like to I cannot recommend | it to friends who are just starting out to do it as I myself | spend 3+ weeks to learn vim. They get perplexd on installing | termux. | schwartzworld wrote: | Micro works on termux too without the learning curve. | Leparamour wrote: | Behold the disciples of vim and Emacs at it again to lead | another untainted soul astray to please their dark lords. | Apage satanas! | dheera wrote: | Suppose I had an extra PC lying around that I could donate | (6th/7th gen Intel, can run Ubuntu 20.04, no monitor) -- (a) | would that hypothetically be useful to you, and (b) how would I | get it to you without spending on international shipping? | e3bc54b2 wrote: | If you ever write about yiur setup, it will be a huge help! I | have a friend who is constrained for comouting resources, but | eager to learn nonetheless. I help out wherever I can but it is | hard for me to get his perspective, because as crappy and old | as they may, I still had full fledged PCs to cut my teeth on. | exdsq wrote: | This is inspirational! Hope to see you move onto great things | after your CS degree :) | DrFell wrote: | Is learning to program a human right or a human rights | violation? | echoradio wrote: | Out of curiosity, is something like a Raspberry Pi Zero an | option in terms of availability and having the equipment lying | around to make it work (i.e. SD card, usb plug, etc.)? | | You should consider reaching out to the Raspberry Pi Foundation | and explaining the situation. It is a registered charity and | may have a program for distributing kits (and covering the | associated costs) to areas or individuals who do not have easy | access to hardware. | Leparamour wrote: | It's probably a step-up from just using a phone or phablet | but with a Raspi you'd still need (compatible) monitors. No | idea what the availability and markup is for these though | reliable electricity might be another issue for remote | regions. | Tepix wrote: | Pretty much any flat screen tv with HDMI will do. | rootsudo wrote: | TBF this is not bad, keep going. Many people in the "west" have | brand new macbooks and never installed xcode, python, etc. | | The device doesn't matter, the user behavior and education | does. | mnadkvlb wrote: | Hey, if you are interested you can reply me with your email | address here, i can ship you a laptop for free (intel 5th gen | i5) that i dont use anymore. it has 4gigs of ram soldered | (surface pro 3). and can hopefully be used for some | development. | hemanta212 wrote: | Thank you for such kind and generous gesture. | | Sadly, with how things are with the courier and customs dep. | here they can charge 30-40% of orignal price to receive | electronic items | | Fortunately, I have managed to get few python freelance gigs | here and there and in a few months, I may be able to afford | one. | [deleted] | bmsleight_ wrote: | FedEx are very good, the sender can choose to pay all the | charges. | cute_boi wrote: | Nope. | | In 2016 I tried fedex and told my friends to send old | macbook. In insurance he had written the purchase price. | And I had to pay all the taxes. And it was 40% tax. | | Customs officers are thieves here. | | And fedex did nothing. I supposed the would deliver to my | home. But they made me run for 2-3 days and told me to go | to customs and claim my items. | MontyCarloHall wrote: | > they can charge 30-40% of orignal price to receive | electronic items | | Ouch. Hanlon's razor aside, it's almost as if the | government is intentionally preventing the economy from | modernizing. | | Really sad that some bureaucrats couldn't see the huge long | term gains of a more technology-oriented economy, and | instead could only focus on whatever marginal short term | revenue these tariffs generated. | atatatat wrote: | Could go the opposite way and welcome everyone and | everything in, and have situations like your ports being | bought by China, as is happening in African nations. | MontyCarloHall wrote: | AFAIK, China has invested considerably in controlling | African port infrastructure and operations, not trade | policy in the abstract. While owning a port often implies | direct control over what goes through it, the converse is | not true: a government can still control its own port | infrastructure while being completely laissez-faire about | what goes through it. | mtnGoat wrote: | They are building the ports to control the policy, it | ain't altruistic. | | China owned port can be shut down on a whim, thus giving | its owner political power because closing the port would | effect the nations livelihood via exports/imports. | kyawzazaw wrote: | They do in a proxy way control the policy. Often times, | it is not just port infrastructure. Also manufacturing, | agriculture and mining. | mongodude wrote: | This is the problem in many emerging economies in SE | Asia. Just because many people are struggling to arrange | their daily meals, Governments get into socialist mode | and taxes anything which does not classify as bare | necessity. Sadly, it is a vicious loop and these | economies are not modernizing enough at a rapid pace | despite so much talent waiting for an opportunity. | co_pilates wrote: | That's not socialist, socialists tax in order to provide | services and security for the people, what you describe | is just greed and graft. | tauwauwau wrote: | I agree with everything you said but your usage of "Just | Because" for daily meals doesn't feel right. | z3t4 wrote: | If the tax money is spent on education, healthcare, and | infrastructure such as communication/fiber and water, | then it will only take one generation to go from: poor - | have to work in order to eat, to poor - but have free | time to learn coding without starving, then after 3 | generations you might have gone to an information society | without going through the industrial age. Unless other | countries suck out all the bright minds. | andi999 wrote: | Or you do it like Singapore a bit faster. | scoopertrooper wrote: | I'm weird, your comment got me interested in Nepalese | custom duties. I had a read through and it looks like | notebooks do not incur import duties in Nepal! | | > Automatic data processing machines and units thereof; | magnetic or optical readers, machines for transcribing data | on to data media in coded form and machines for processing | such data, not elsewhere specified or included. -Portable | automatic data processing machines, weighing not more than | 10 kg, consisting of at least a central processing unit, a | keyboard and a display: 8471.30.10 ---Notebook and Laptop | | > Import Duty (% except otherwise specified) | | > SAARC: Free | | > GENERAL: Free | | https://customs.gov.np/storage/files/1/Custom%20Tariff/Cust | o... | | You're welcome. | davidjytang wrote: | My experience with China customs is that if custom | officer feels like taxing you 15%/25%/45% on this | particular day, they will find a way to tax you. Unless. | afavour wrote: | What the law specifies is not always the lived reality. | kyawzazaw wrote: | If the officer feels like doing that, they will. That's | sadly the case in many countries. | jeofken wrote: | Was the case for me when I flew back to Germany with my | music instruments. They would not listen to any reason | but forced me to pay to get the instruments that are my | property back. Thieves. | pera wrote: | In Argentina you have to pay 50% of the market value for | all electronic imports and you will have to deal with | customs officers (who will usually try to make your day | quite miserable if you don't "tip" em) | quijoteuniv wrote: | Is worth mentioning regarding Argentina and this HN | submission in particular that the government is aiming to | provide a laptop to every secondary student, they are | build (assembled is probably more accurate) in Argentina | and they come with a Linux distribution maintained by | them called Huayra. I think that is pretty awesome for | such a poor country. Customs in general are annoying, I | was arriving to Germany from the US with a new MacBook, I | was stopped and they ask me where did I buy the computer, | I had bought in Germany, so they say it was fine, they | told me to send a copy of the invoice to them, which I | did. They were just making sure I paid the taxes there. | From what I heard from Argentineans bribing is very | common, but they somehow think people taking the bribes | are the only corrupt but not people bribing, or avoiding | taxes. | NotEvil wrote: | > From what I heard from Argentineans bribing is very | common, but they somehow think people taking the bribes | are corrupt but not people bribing, or avoiding taxes. | Wait this isn't the case everywhere. I thought this how | corruption laws are made. | walty wrote: | Germans also have been somehow ok with paying bribes: | https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-siemens-executive- | plea... https://www.dw.com/en/ex-siemens-manager-pleads- | guilty-in-us... In the 90s, those bribes would have been | tax deductible in Germany: https://archive.is/Eit0f | 908B64B197 wrote: | > Sadly, with how things are with the courier and customs | dep. here they can charge 30-40% of orignal price to | receive electronic items | | Something I never really understood, when going to less | developed countries, why are customs always trying to | fleece everyone? Normalized bribes, byzantine bureaucracy, | astronomical import duties on computers and essential | products. | | What's the goal with this? Is there some kind of long term | strategy I'm not seeing? Do they not want investments or a | tech sector? | | The unemployment and brain drain these countries suffer | sure paints a bleak picture. | bitcurious wrote: | Emergent, not planned. But everyone gets a cut, so | nothing changes. | foolinaround wrote: | > Do they not want investments or a tech sector? | | The individual customs official or even the department is | not incentivized to look at the benefit to the entire | country. On the other hand, they are directly responsible | to increase their collections, based on which they get a | cut. | bugfix wrote: | The high fees are used to discourage imports. Here in my | country they say these taxes are used to "protect the | local businesses/manufacturing", but it makes absolutely | no sense, because most (tech) products aren't even made | here. They usually charge you 60-70% of the retail price. | Aromasin wrote: | During my travels I met a family in Kenya who were some | of the friendliest people I'd ever met. They showed us | all around the the local towns and brought us to a | fantastic bunch of places. In return, I wanted to support | their son who was going through education at the time - | either pay his fees or send him school supplies. | Unfortunately, they said that there was no point because | any money or supplies we sent to them would never arrive; | they'd just be taken by the people at the post office as | soon as they saw a foreign stamp. It wasn't even | government mandated fees on customs. It was just theft. | This was before the advent of digital currency and other | means of sending money abroad, so we simple had no way we | could support them other than giving them gifts while we | were there. | | I still think about them all the time, and how sad it is | that people live in a society like that where blatant | robbery was simply the norm. It gives me some hope though | that with the proliferation of affordable mobile phones | across impoverished regions, people finally have the | means, however modest, to receive an education. | Aperocky wrote: | Less developed for a reason. | | There are a significant amount of people who are | basically milking the rest of the society with their | power and doing so without any consequence. This is what | entrenched corruption looks like. | | There are no need to specifically break any laws that | others are not breaking already, there just have to be so | many that compliance is impossible and enforcement | selective. When the gray area expand so significantly, | you get the power broker rich as they enjoy competitive | advantage. | krrrh wrote: | I don't know about Nepal, but traditionally places like | Brazil pursued "import substitution" strategies of | charging high tariffs on technology products to try to | establish home-grown industries, and pursue autarky | (self-sufficiency). | | It's an insane thing to do since the benefits to | consumers and business users of these products is many | times higher than the money made by the industries | producing them. To a lesser extent the same pattern | emerges in dirigiste-curious economies like Canada who | limit foreign entrants into markets like telecom, | resulting in a general tax on the entire population who | suffer expensive and inadequate data plans in order to | protect local oligopolies. | foolinaround wrote: | > the benefits to consumers and business users of these | products is many times higher than the money made by the | industries producing them | | the money made by the industries producing them is | tangible, and there are lobbies protecting it, whereas | the benefits to customers are intangible. | | If you think about it, it is not the insane thing, in | fact, given the system, it is the sane rational thing | that benefits these actors. | 908B64B197 wrote: | > To a lesser extent the same pattern emerges in | dirigiste-curious economies like Canada who limit foreign | entrants into markets like telecom, resulting in a | general tax on the entire population who suffer expensive | and inadequate data plans in order to protect local | oligopolies. | | That's something I never understood either. Telecom is a | commodity. I also think that's what hurt Blackberry back | when it was still relevant: They were developing these | phones in an environment where the carrier had all powers | and where data was so limited. | | I remember them being incredibly skeptical at the iPhone | because Apple was expecting data to become cheap and | plentiful. | rckoepke wrote: | I'd like to help more; Could you email me at | koepke@gmail.com whenever you have free time and energy? | beilabs wrote: | Send me through your CV if you're looking for an internship | after you finish your studies. My company is based in Jwagal, | Kathmandu. Check my profile for my contact details. jonathan @ | domain name in profile. | narrator wrote: | Emacs is great for these small screens since it comes from a | world where 80x24 terminals were the standard. | raizinho wrote: | Which OS are you using? | hemanta212 wrote: | Termux provides its own pkg manager and compiled packages | though you can setup distros using proot I havent really | explored it. | | If you are asking about azure VM i have a ubuntu 20.04 image | setup. | Abishek_Muthian wrote: | > we're definitely not alone and I have seen many indian and | other south asian friends do the same. | | Thank you for considering the struggles of others while you | yourself face it. I know a self made individual from Nepal like | you in U.S. working in IT with green card and might be able to | guide you. Contact me if you're looking for such help. | | It's hard to visualize the digital divide in education induced | due to the pandemic by someone who has easy access to compute, | Internet and uninterrupted power supply. | | [Trigger warning: Suicides] | | Even middle class families in India spend more than 40% of | their earnings on their children's education, So when the | pandemic made education online, E-education startups with | questionable practices became unicorns, their founders | billionaires while children from marginalized, underrepresented | communities quit their education forever in-favor of labor | work. | | There were numerous cases of children committing suicides | because they couldn't afford a phone or because they broke the | only phone shared with their siblings for education. | | The hardware problem is not just because of accessibility, But | also because of the lack of repairability. Many people came | forward to donate their old phones, But it was often useless. | Perhaps if OLPC had been successful things might have turned | out differently, Maybe there's still a chance to build a OLPC | using latest hardware like RPi 400. Then we need to solve the | networking, Perhaps improving upon LoRAWAN could enable real | time text messaging; I've been tracking this problem[1] on my | platform since the start of the pandemic. | | [1] https://needgap.com/problems/149-remote-education-for- | underp... | 908B64B197 wrote: | > Perhaps if OLPC had been successful things might have | turned out differently, Maybe there's still a chance to build | a OLPC using latest hardware like RPi 400. | | At India scale they could design their own machines. | Something like a ThinkPad X60 where the motherboard can | attach a RPI Compute Module. | nashashmi wrote: | I think of all those people with phones that easily break | because the phone was not made so well. Or because the | children are not so tech savvy to make garabage tech work. | Like I can. Having been in a highly stressed environment | myself, the emotions that drive them to self harm are all too | well known for me. | Zancarius wrote: | > garabage tech | | I know this was a typo, but it feels like an unintentional | portmanteau of "garbage" and "garage" which seems to fit | particularly well. I hope you don't go back to edit this! | | Also: Borrowing! | maliker wrote: | Since shipping hardware looks like it won't work, what's | available to buy in terms of hardware where you are? Seems like | a bigger screen would help. | | And then there's the problem of money transfer. I'm guessing | moving money through paypal/bitcoin/etc. doesn't work? | zepto wrote: | You say 'sadly', but that is vastly better than the equipment I | had when I learned these skills in 80's and 90s. | dharmab wrote: | It's sad because they're at a disadvantage to their peers. | zepto wrote: | Some of their peers, perhaps, but much less of a | disadvantage than they would have been at before | smartphones. | qmmmur wrote: | Yes, when you were learning to develop in the 80's. This has | a slight undertone of bootstrap lifting and a total lack of | empathy for people who have little access to stuff that is | thrown out like trash in the west. Use your brain. | zepto wrote: | > Yes, when you were learning to develop in the 80's. This | has a slight undertone of bootstrap lifting and a total | lack of empathy for people who have little access to stuff | that is thrown out like trash in the west. | | Speak for yourself. You know nothing my access to | computers, which was not the privileged 'western' fantasy | you imagine. | | I was thinking about what it would be like to have a | smartphone to learn on, and for someone who grew up without | easy access to computers until later I think it would be | amazing. | | > Use your brain. | | Hmmm... | TimTheTinker wrote: | Taking your comment in the best possible light, I see this as | a general indicator that for would-be-developers, things are | often _so much better_ than they were, despite the fact that | many OSes are locked down. | | Services like Azure and GitHub make it easy to get started, | and combined with great documentation like MDN and Q&A on | StackOverflow, so much more information and opportunity is | available. | | I remember struggling to learn QBASIC as a kid in the '90s | without any resources (I didn't have internet). My programs | were 20 times the length they could have been if only I'd | been able to learn a few basic data structures. | Leparamour wrote: | As someone who is just learning coding in Python again, the | amount of available learning material and projects create | the luxury problem of overabundance. It's like drinking | from a fire-hose as it's nearly impossible to discern the | myriad of low-quality from high-quality content or even | what's even relevant in order to get a general programming | education. | | Too many companies trying to lock you into eco-systems, new | frameworks springing up and becoming obsolete too fast. Do | I need github or is gitlab better? Flask? Flutter? Django? | Blockchain? Machine learning? To a beginner this is all a | swirling mess and leads to being overwhelmed and paralyzed. | vnorilo wrote: | This - I never felt the lack of learning materials. I | saved my pocket money to buy Turbo C++ and Assembler in | my teens. They came with nice fat books that explained | standard libraries and instruction sets. My library had | more books with references for DOS interrupts/syscalls, | memory managers. I got a game programming book that | showed me how to push pixels into the framebuffer, and | which ports to bang to get a Sound Blaster to sing. I had | the Mike Abrash optimization book and spent much of idle | school time doodling pipeline simulations on paper. | | There was just a handful of integrations like that, and | the rest was up to you. The world was less | interconnected, there were no REST APIs or gigantic | browser/OS API surfaces. | TimTheTinker wrote: | You sound like a smart person who learns quickly. | | I asked for a Borland C book and compiler, which my | parents gave me for my 15th birthday (I think)... I tried | to read it but I couldn't understand it. | | I also used to carry around and read the "Practical C++ | programming book", trying and failing to grok it... what | I didn't understand (and what I didn't hear anywhere) was | that _trying_ small examples is the only way to really | get started in a new programming language. | | As a high schooler, the only languages I made progress in | were the super-approachable ones -- like TI-basic and | QBASIC. | | The modern internet would have made it all so much easier | :-) | zepto wrote: | > Taking your comment in the best possible light, I see | this as a general indicator that for would-be-developers, | things are often so much better than they were, | | That's exactly the point - for someone who is enthusiastic, | the resources a phone provides are vast. | | When I was learning, not only were the computers primitive | and expensive, but even access to information about them | required all manner of work, travel, etc. | haltingproblem wrote: | Very impressive. keep it up. Nepal has a thriving developer | scene and we should do everything to nurture it. | | If you are looking for Python freelance gigs then please ping | me through email in my profile. | branon wrote: | What Android version do you run on your J7? My J7 is stuck on | Android 6 and can't install Termux. It doesn't get OTA and I'm | not sure how to update it. | hemanta212 wrote: | I have j7 max with android 8. IIRC termux should run on | android 5+ maybe try to install from fdroid or search older | apk versions also there is userland app that you can try. | NotEvil wrote: | Use fdroid or from there github release find an compatible | version. The internal env. are updated for everyone | bigdict wrote: | What is the connection to Nepal? The author seems to be from | India. | rckoepke wrote: | You are correct, the title on HN is wrong. | | > "We are indians bro not Nepalese :laugh:" | andygmb wrote: | FWIW, this thread originally linked to a tweet from a | Nepalese-based person who found it in a Nepalese FB group, | hence the confusion. No ill intent. | forgotpwd16 wrote: | That "just a mobile phone" is a computer in small form factor and | possibly more powerful than computers two decades ago. Especially | on Android devices where you can run chrooted a full GNU/Linux | environment, the only difficulty (but not a barrier) smartphones | have for being used productively are the small display screens | and the lack of keyboard. | IshKebab wrote: | Yeah I don't think anyone is under the impression that any | smart phone is not powerful enough to do this, but have you | actually tried development on a phone? Even with a keyboard | this is masochistic. | ycosynot wrote: | To help poor countries I was working on Arduino Nano (3$ | computer) with a 2" OLED monochrome display (very very little | energy required, especially if you show pixels only 1/10th of a | time and use eye remanence). I don't have time to make it | through, but maybe someone will be interested. It has low CPU but | you can stream any kind of data through USB serial. | atum47 wrote: | Being a poor student in Brasil, I went through my first two years | of college using a R$ 400,00 (around 80 dollars) Dell notebook. | Several of my projects hosted on GitHub were written using this | machine. | | There's a super market chain here (Carrefour) that sells | eletronics. They usually would hold a sales when something is | wrong (a product is about to expire or an electronic presents mal | functioning). My notebook in question fell into this category, it | presents a small defect. The defect?! The Windows pre installed | in the machine wouldn't activate online (some problem with the | key). | | So I got the notebook extra cheap, activated it by phone (since I | could not activate it by software), saved the key, remove | windows, installed linux (which doubled the speed of the machine, | of course) and went my merry way into college. | | I don't know the rest of the world, but a smartphone in Brazil | can be compared in price to a notebook (a not very good one). The | second advice from this story is Linux can give new life to old | machines, try it. | grogenaut wrote: | I've added 5+ years of life to several of my old laptops with | Linux. Spouse was hesitant to try it on their dying windows | machine but with Linux it was very usable and absurdly faster. | It's actually still usable and it's a 2006 dell. | | It's almost time to move their win7 machine to ubuntu | akatechis wrote: | Is this news? | dariusj18 wrote: | This just in, person uses computer to learn computers. | davgard wrote: | Many third-world countries use a mobile phones, and some use | paper to practice and learn to code. Especially at the start of | this online class, many people struggle with their internet | connection. | Robotbeat wrote: | This is why I hate how modern smartphones make it so hard to | program anything. IPhone App Store policies make it all but | impossible to actual use the iPhone for full fledged programming | (including compiling, etc). | | I otherwise love the iPhone. | [deleted] | beebeepka wrote: | Story reminded me about this one time I had to listen to a | Samsung representative at a summit. While she was pitching their | VR web browsing initiative, she somehow mentioned how a [Samsung] | smartphone could be used as a PC. | | Being the cinyc that I am, I assumed the worst: you are trying to | sell me a junk solution to a problem I don't have, lady. | | Looking at stories like this, I realize I have no vision and | understand a lot less about the world than my ego has been | telling me | ellis0n wrote: | I developing mobile games and apps on mobile | phone/tablet/raspeberrypi or computer with minimalistic | programming language ACPUL on AnimationCPU platform. Join to | platform develop and TestFlight. See tech details here | https://animationcpu.herokuapp.com | wly_cdgr wrote: | My first reaction was "Get this person a Raspberry Pi stat!", but | that might not help them much if they don't have access to a | monitor. What I imagine would work better for them is a small | light laptop with a couple USB ports for good compatibility with | inexpensive peripherals, a long-lasting replaceable battery of an | affordable and common type, and no requirement that the computer | be connected to the internet to be useful (f*ck off and die, | Chromebook). | | I've had Asus and Lenovo laptops that fit this bill pretty well, | and the Lenovo was even close to being cheap enough to be | practical (~$150) (the Asus was more like $250, but it was also a | 1080p 14" with a 9+-hour battery). Of the stuff I can easily find | available online right now, a Kano would fit the bill pretty well | (you can find them on sale for also ~$150), as would the low end | Lenovo IdeaPads. I like those a bit better than the Kano as they | have a sturdier build and include a webcam | | ...Found the newer version of that Asus - this baby is a beaut - | https://www.microcenter.com/product/633069/asus-l410ma-ps04-... | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | I top this with an incredible guy from Nigeria who learned | programming using feature phone with J2ME. | | Fascinating read: https://entrepreneurship.mit.edu/news/went- | programming-featu... | aww_dang wrote: | Love to see the can-do, self-starter attitude. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | Is it time to revive the OLPC program? That one started the low- | cost "netbook" trend, after that the smartphones and tablets got | to the forefront. | | How much would a ruggedized laptop cost to make now? I know | there's some RPI kits out there but they seem pretty pricey for | what you get; I suspect the biggest expense is the screen, so | that's an area that could be improved on. Surely there's older | screen tech that can be produced at ridiculous scale nowadays? | 1024x800 is enough for the basics. If that can run on a 5w USB | charger that would be ideal, it could run off solar panels and | cheap powerbanks then. | | Anyway, if that's there then the tech companies who want to | deduct some taxes can order millions and distribute them to the | countries where people could benefit from them. | Robotbeat wrote: | I hate that Netbooks died. I think they were just too good for | too cheap of a price. A full environment (who cares if it's | slower) often costs far more now. It fell victim to market | segmentation. We got locked down tablets (whose OSes were end- | of-lifed soon after release) that were optimized for passive | consumption instead of boundless creation. | II2II wrote: | It is probably best for them to develop their own solutions | based upon their own needs and what they have access to. | Offering suggestions is certainly valid, but recognizing that | they may not be heeded for various reasons is important. Just | look at what happened when the author told his brother that he | needed a laptop. | rahulbshrestha wrote: | I worked for a NGO that distributed OLPC laptops to rural | schools in Nepal. Those laptops are super slow + its interface | is hard to use. People in villages use smartphones that are | 100X faster. Later, we switched to Raspberry pi(s) connected to | peripheral devices. If you want to help out or learn more, | check out: https://www.olenepal.org/. | lerie wrote: | I am not surprised at all, and this is very common nowadays. | Tade0 wrote: | I used to have a similar setup on my phone when my laptop started | dying and I was in the middle of moving countries. | | You can have Node running via termux, albeit with some | limitations, e.g. no global modules. | | Of course debugging isn't really possible, so you'll have rely on | your engineering prowess. | | I wanted to create a similar setup for Rust, but unfortunately | compiling the compiler from source to work on Android was way | above my skills (provided it was even possible to begin with). | loulouxiv wrote: | It seems that termux is packaging rust now, | | pkg install rust | Tade0 wrote: | Excellent! | | Although seeing how npm install took _ages_ to complete I 'm | afraid it's going to take even more to compile even a debug | target in Rust. | NotEvil wrote: | Actually that depend upon the phone phone you are using if | its 2-3 years old. It should be fast enough. | exdsq wrote: | The author on LinkedIn has stated they're Indian, not Nepalese | jstrieb wrote: | For anyone reading this thread who may be in a similar situation: | I wrote a script that allows you to use GitHub Actions as a | computer. Any work you do can be committed to a repository and | saved for later. | | It can either boot up a command-line, or a complete desktop | interface. Both are available entirely over the Web (and thus a | smartphone). All you need is a free GitHub account. Both are also | available over Tor in case you're in a situation where things | might be blocked. | | https://github.com/jstrieb/ctf-collab | | I originally built this for doing competitive hacking challenges | with a friend, but I have also used it at libraries, and from my | phone. In general, it is great for when you need a desktop but | don't have one, or for when you can't install things on the | computer you're using. | | Hopefully this helps others who need access to such resources for | learning! | eitally wrote: | You may or may not be surprised at how many kids in Silicon | Valley (especially San Jose) did a full year of remote school | using only a mobile phone, and in many cases, where that was a | shared mobile phone and the only household method of accessing | the internet. It worked about as well as you might expect, given | these kids are often from households with multiple other | disadvantages. | beilabs wrote: | Hey everyone. I'm the author of the tweet above, I came across it | on one of the Nepalese Facebook Groups I'm a member of. | | The original source post is here: | https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shubham-sharma-34bbab18b_webd... | jiggawatts wrote: | Story time! | | I grew up in eastern Europe in the communist era, in a country | where entire factories were run using Commodore 64 computers that | were smuggled in, bypassing export controls and sanctions. | | The programmer at one such factory was a friend of my father, and | we'd go over to his place for dinner semi-regularly. He didn't | have kids, and I was six, so I was bored to tears. No toys and | nobody my age to play with! | | He did have a C64, which was the _only other one_ in town apart | from the one at the factory. He was using it to practice | programming after-hours at home. There were no games on it, but | he did have a book of games. | | As in: a literal printed book of the source code for several | simple games. That you were supposed to _type in_ to be able to | play! | | So I did. I had nothing else to do, so I whiled away the hours | while the adults chatted poking away at the keyboard, typing in | the BASIC code of the shortest, simplest game first. | | It didn't work at first. There were some errors. With help, I | fixed the typos, and hey presto, the game worked! I still | remember the elation, the feeling of accomplishment after all | that work. I didn't even play the game for more than a minute or | so, I _immediately_ got to work on entering the next, longer game | 's code. I was hooked. | | Eventually I tried all three or four of the games in the book, | and got bored. However, I was allowed to borrow the BASIC | introductory problem set book, which I took back home with me to | study. I solved the problems one at a time on grid paper (to | match the fixed-width screen layout). I "ran" the programs in my | head, debugged them by working out the variable values step by | step on paper, and then tested my solutions on the real C64 | computer whenever my parents went over for a social dinner. Most | of my programs worked, and ran at _ludicrous_ speed compared to | the glacial pen & paper solutions I had worked out. I instantly | understood that Computers were _levers for the mind_. Learning to | control that raw power was intoxicating. | | We fled across the iron curtain as political refugees, and I took | that textbook with me. I had no access to computers for nearly a | year, but when we finally got settled permanently in the West my | dad bought a used C64 at a garage sale for a few dollars. This | was a computer that back in my homeland would be the carefully | guarded control hub of a _factory_. Here it was a discarded | plaything. Even at that age, that blew my mind. | | I learned more programming languages in quick succession. Pascal | at the age of 11, C and Assembly at 12, C++ at 13. I had written | 3D engines by the time I went to University. | | Statistically, if you know programming, you probably learned it | in a tertiary education setting, most likely in your late teens | or early twenties. Just like learning a foreign language at that | age, you'll never be perfectly fluent. _You 'll always have an | accent_, no matter what you do. | | To me, programming is my _mother tongue_. I 'm perfectly fluent | and _unaccented_. You probably can 't even tell, you can't _hear | the difference_. | | Programming for you is something you do at work. | | _I 've had dreams in C++_ | moron4hire wrote: | > Statistically, if you know programming, you probably learned | it in a tertiary education setting, most likely in your late | teens or early twenties. Just like learning a foreign language | at that age, you'll never be perfectly fluent. You'll always | have an accent, no matter what you do. | | I appreciate your story, but this comment bothered me, because | it's something people repeat a lot and it's actually not true. | There's no good evidence that adults have more difficulty | acquiring language than children. There were some older studies | that claimed to show such, but as has become all too familiar | these days, their methods were spurious and there have been | some replication issues. | | I work for a company whose entire purpose for the last 35 years | has been making fluent speakers of adults. We do it. We do it | regularly. Our students are diplomats and military personnel. | They don't really get a choice of whether they study a | particular language. It's their job and they have to do it. | | The reason adults fail to gain fluency in foreign language is | because they don't do the work. They choose to do other things. | There is no fundamental limit on the language acquisition | abilities of adults, if they just stop bitching about homework | and put the effort in. | | And I firmly believe the same is true about programming. I | didn't start programming until I was 16. I didn't even have a | computer until I was 15. I'm almost 40 years old now and I'm | the head software engineer for my company. The people I see who | struggle with programming who have been at it for years, | they're the ones who have approached their entire career under | the attitude of "I am not very good at this, I need to find | easy, quick fixes for things". Rather than putting the effort | in to learn, they cheap out and never grow. | | It may feel like growth is not a linear function of effort all | the time. Sometimes you feel like you're banging your head | against a wall, not understanding things, and not progressing. | That's mostly just feeling. I've had it several times myself | and have been surprised to find, coming back to a topic several | months later, that the topic much easier to understand on the | 2nd go. Even when we subjectively feel like we aren't learning | and aren't progressing, we still actually are. | emptysongglass wrote: | Can people like me hire your company to teach a language at a | higher level? | moron4hire wrote: | Yes, you can. We take on individuals regularly: | https://www.dlsdc.com | alecst wrote: | > There's no good evidence that adults have more difficulty | acquiring language than children. | | This kind of rocked me, because in my experience, kids have a | clear and obvious advantage compared to adults. They can | completely passively acquire a language, phonology and | grammar, with no training, in a matter of 5 years or so. And | that's completely passively, no education, no effort. | | I totally buy that you can turn an adult into a fluent | speaker. And I get that it's good for your business to show | adults that it's not impossible. But it's like a million | times easier for kids, isn't it? | wccrawford wrote: | As the other comment says, it's all about the immersion. If | you're locked somewhere with no way to communicate except | to learn a new language, you'll learn it pretty fast. There | might be an upper age limit on learning it fluently, but I | wouldn't bet on it. | | If anything, adults have an advantage that they have | settled down a bit and can study effectively on their own, | instead of just passive and forced learning. | | Of course, they still have all the temptation to just screw | around, too. And if you're not actually locked to that new | language, the old language is incredibly tempting. | PMan74 wrote: | > in a matter of 5 years or so | | Wouldn't anybody master a language in 5 years? I'm assuming | you're talking about a situation where you are immersed in | the language. | codethief wrote: | > in my experience, kids have a clear and obvious advantage | compared to adults | | Their advantage is that they have almost unlimited time. | | Consider how long it takes for a child to speak their first | word and, then, to actually speak in well-formed sentences: | Several months, even years, of complete immersion and 24/7 | exposure to native speakers. | | Now compare this to an adult attending a language class for | the first time. Chances are, by the end of that class, they | will be able to say their first words or even sentences, | will understand these words' & sentences' meaning and in | which contexts to apply them. Adults are orders of | magnitude faster at learning new languages because they | already know most of the concepts a new language's words | and grammatical structures can refer to. (We all inhabit | the same planet, after all.) | | The only problem is: Learning _all_ the intricacies of a | language, of its grammar and vocabulary, of its melody and | accent takes time and lots of continued exposure to native | speakers. Adults usually don 't (want to) spend that time - | whether that's a conscious decision or an unconscious one. | a45_hj89 wrote: | You are absolutely dickless, aren't you. | sundvor wrote: | Loved your write up of your amazing experience, what a great | post. | | Typed in game listings, I remember those well! There were | magazines devoted to these for the Vic 20 / C64, with pages and | pages of source code to type in. | | (We were absolutely glued to them.) | | I recall having the C64 basic manual for quite some time before | being able to afford the actual C64, selling my Vic20 in the | process and doing a summer job as a teen to afford. I stayed up | at night reading it from cover to cover in anticipation. Not | nearly as impressive as your story (I grew up in the safety of | Norway, and you were picking up the languages way, way | faster!), but it hints at a passion for computers we were both | yearning for! | | (I got into assembly on the Amiga but never C++, sadly) | 908B64B197 wrote: | > We fled across the iron curtain as political refugees, and I | took that textbook with me. I had no access to computers for | nearly a year, but when we finally got settled permanently in | the West my dad bought a used C64 at a garage sale for a few | dollars. This was a computer that back in my homeland would be | the carefully guarded control hub of a factory. Here it was a | discarded plaything. Even at that age, that blew my mind. | | That's an incredible story! I can't help but think about all | the wasted talent for those who couldn't escape. Truly | communism held eastern Europe decades back. | mayankkaizen wrote: | That is an amazing comment. Feels like comment should have been | much longer. Have you written about this anywhere else? | sphotavada wrote: | Thank you, I will use this post as evidence to show to aspiring | engineers, of the kind of overbloated egos that pervade the | tech industry. | password321 wrote: | Why is a comment that makes assumptions about its readers and | makes typical bragging points of meaningless things like | learning syntax at a young age near the top? It felt like I was | reading a parody towards the end. | bolbol66 wrote: | Great story, but you've never dreamt in C++. | grogenaut wrote: | im betting he meant it. ill ofyen have fever dreams whem too | much caffiene or whatever and ill be trying to do for loops | and what not in various languages. ive had people talk to me | in code in dreams. in my dreams things are usualy sent | essentially telepathically as ideas anyway so language is | more about concepts amd structure. | besnn00 wrote: | I've dreamt in bash-like, but in my defense it was kind of a | fever dream. | abdusco wrote: | He probably means programming or debugging while dreaming, | which certainly happens when you're up 4am in the morning | fixing a stubborn bug or learning something new that | captivates your brain. | jiggawatts wrote: | I meant it literally. I've had dreams where instead of a | normal language, I dreamt _in_ C++, as if it was a human | language. Instead of spoken words, a header file was | changing in my mind, taking shape to match my thoughts. | | It's the most "alien" experience I've ever had. | exdsq wrote: | Sounds like what an LSD experience must feel like | exikyut wrote: | That's really cool. | | Sounds like it was an abstract-declarative sort of | narrative - header files are generally references that | prospectively describe and model things. | | I'm curious if the code was valid. (Hmm, and if the | numbers were all fuzzy... people sometimes say they can't | read clocks or digits.) | | A bilingual friend once shared that they sometimes forgot | which language they'd heard something in, their brain | could subconsciously translate back and forth with so | little effort. This sounds kind of like that. | | Hmmmm... programming languages are unique in that they're | generally never sounded-out to the same extent as wetware | languages, eg in how commas and periods turn into pitch | changes and pauses. Human(-to-human) language does have a | visual/written component, but it's maybe... hm, 50/50 | sounds potentially wrong, but it _is_ sorta half-half; | audio serialization is generally awkwardly bolted on to | the side with programming, which is generally always | visual, and has strong correlation (or even fundamental | integration) to control and problem solving. | | To integrate all that very young may have perhaps | slightly remapped things around such that that language | processing developed strong cohesive lock-step with | visual/spatial reasoning, with sufficient cohesion that | the integration retained structural integrity even when | the logical/rational/etc parts of the brain shut down | when asleep. | z0ltan wrote: | Hahahahaha! | baumgarn wrote: | A few times in dreams I found solutions to problems I have | been working on during the day. | adminscoffee wrote: | hey, i coded since i was a child as well but i would never say | someone will never be fluent in the "mother tongue", i am sure | you are dedicated but, don't stop others down, a ton of people | learn later on in life and manage just fine. some people | started later because lack of access, my first computer as well | was a c64, i too have coded in basic, pascal and the likes, and | i know people who has started later and just got their first | job, i don't judge anyone who wants to take up programming | later on in life, not everyone gets the same start in life and | that is okay, anyways, ive met people who learned english and | you would never be able to tell they weren't native speakers, | at the end of the day, any language mastery comes down to time, | and grit. | mchaver wrote: | If you are open to sharing, I'd be curious to hear what you | have done since university. | [deleted] | codetrotter wrote: | I grew up in Norway in the 90's, and at that time even here most | people had at most one computer at home for the whole family. | | My father had a couple of books that were written by Lynda | Weinman, one about HTML and one about graphics for the web. I | read those books, and with pen and paper I would some write some | rudimentary HTML. | | A couple of years later I finally got a computer of my own and | started typing out HTML in Notepad and getting to see the result | in Internet Explorer. | | This was part of the early beginning of my fascination with | computers. | | Today I am a software developer, writing applications on macOS, | iOS, FreeBSD and Linux :) | rishabhd wrote: | This might be a big deal, but I have been mentoring this guy on | an on and off basis, he does not have a laptop, is not a CS | student (was studying for medical exam - NEET) and writes all his | code on an android cellphone. He got interested in cyber security | and wrote his first functional keylogger (disclaimer : it was | good exercise to teach him basic *nix utilities and how native | functionalities can be leveraged by an attackers to their end, | not for malicious objectives) using his phone as an IDE, compiler | and what not. | | Talent, can come from anywhere. | | https://github.com/shivamsuyal/Android-Keylogger | | side note, he just completed his 12th class (us equivalent of | high school) and is looking to research more in cybersec. | Aeolun wrote: | I think the title misrepresents this a bit. He may not have had a | PC, but he definitely had a computer. | akritrime wrote: | I think this is more common than people realize. Especially in | the Indian subcontinent, where most people have a smartphone but | only few have a PC. I learnt programming on pen and paper first | and then on those phone IDEs even before I had access to a pc. | And even after a PC, I used to use my phone as a display for my | desktop via chrome remote desktop because my monitor got damaged | and only showed shades of green. And my case wasn't even that | extreme, I was just not that bothered to get a proper setup until | I really got into programming. The situation is way more | difficult who are constrained by their financial situation and | have to find a way around it. | hannofcart wrote: | Yeah, I wish the governments in India and Nepal would provide | some subsidies to incentivize companies to manufacture boards | like to RPi which as far as I understand have open | specifications. | | Giving a RPi to a family without resources in India is a force | multiplier. They typically have a small television set and | letting them access a proper computer vitalizes learning for | the children of that household. | | I only have anecdotal evidence of this though, from when I | handed an RPi I wasn't using to my housekeeper's daughter and | also got her a 3g dongle with a cheap data plan for her to | connect to the internet. It got handed down from her to her | brothers as well. | randomperson_24 wrote: | A big problem I have seen with Pi in India is that it | overheats and throttles heavily because the the temperature | is usually high. With additonal cost of a good power supply, | monitor, HDMI cable, its not worth it. | | IMO a better device will be a laptop ~ 80 USD with an ARM | processor and basic specs - especially a good in-built | speaker. | kewrkewm53 wrote: | Pi is nice, but also used hardware would do the job. At least | in Western countries old Core2 Duo business desktops are | basically worthless by now, and such laptops don't exactly | cost much either. Why not export more of those and get some | more years out of them before recycling? They are perfectly | adequate for learning to program. | valleyer wrote: | Sadly, Raspberry Pi can't be manufactured by third parties, | since Broadcom doesn't sell the SoCs to the public. | | There are some other ARM SBCs listed here, but I'm not | familiar with them enough to know whether they're good | substitutes. (Hopefully the "Banana Pi" is?) | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open- | source_computing_... | soneil wrote: | I was going to explain that the only difference between the | raspberry pi & generic pi is the support that comes from | having the mindshare/marketshare. But honestly, I think in | the scope of the real issue it's mostly bike-shedding. | | If you want to deliver a million Pi to the subcontinent, | the real problem isn't the dollar difference between the | various SBC. If you compare a Pi to a phone, you also have | to bring .. | | - Power; not just the obvious, but also that the onboard | battery on a phone brings a high tolerance for supply | issues. | | - Screen; preferably enough of a screen to make the outlay | worth it. If you just put a phone screen on a pi, what did | you really gain? | | - Connectivity; particularly the last mile where the phone | has near-infinite flexibility. | | Of course none of these are remotely difficult (although | connectivity can be difficult remotely), but they're all | BOM cost that end up making the SBC one of the least | interesting parts to solve. For most the Pi-based laptops & | Tablets I've seen, the Pi itself is ballpark 10% of the | overall cost. | | I think if I was going to attempt this (and to be clear, I | use that phrase entirely in the 'armchair quarterback' | scope), I'd be trying to create a terminal that's | essentially a phone dock - because this isn't going to be | an either/or purchase, no-one's going to give up their | phone to get this terminal instead. So instead of using all | your BOM trying to recreate what they already have, | concentrate on what they're missing. | kqr wrote: | Just about everywhere, people learn programming on their | graphing calculators and other low-end devices. I cut my teeth | on a hand-me-down Psion 3C. | | In some sense, I think doing it that way might even be easier. | Constraints release creativity, and being able to read a single | user's manual (however thick) and technically know everything | you need to know is powerful. | Robotbeat wrote: | I wish there was something akin to TI-Basic for smartphones. | A built-in IDE with an interpreted language, with easy path | to compilation. | | It's easier to program a TI-89 calculator than an iPhone. Why | can't this be better? | zepto wrote: | > It's easier to program a TI-89 calculator than an iPhone. | | This is just false. Have a look at Pythonista or one of the | numerous JavaScript idea. Hell, there's even an ocaml | environment on iPhone. | | It could be a lot better, I agree, but it's already vastly | superior to a ti calculator. | Robotbeat wrote: | Superior in what way? It's far easier to write a minimal | program on a TI calculator like the TI89. No App Store | account or Internet required. It's included in every | calculator for free, with function integration into the | hard (ie easier to be precise while typing) keyboard. | zepto wrote: | > Superior in what way? | | When it comes to programming, almost every way. Try | getting a job if you only know how to program a TI-84. | Now compare that with knowing python or JavaScript. | | > It's far easier to write a minimal program on a TI | calculator like the TI89. | | Yes, and far harder to write _anything but a minimal | program_. _Completely impossible_ to write anything in a | commercially used language. | | > No App Store account or Internet required. | | So what? These are widely available. | | > It's included in every calculator for free, with | function integration into the hard (ie easier to be | precise while typing) keyboard. | | So what? You can't write anything resembling a modern | program. This is a way in which the calculator is | _incapable_ of serving as a general purpose computer, not | an advantage. | | I'm not against calculators. I learned to program on my | father's TI, long before I had access to computers. I | still like keystroke programming an HP-15C for repetitive | calculations today. But there is no way that is better | than Pythonista or the ilk for programming in general. | cxr wrote: | > Completely impossible to write anything in a | commercially used language. | | You're approaching this as if the comment was an opinion | about the feasibility of doing commercial software | development instead of what it was, which is a statement | about HCI and the "implicit step zero" of software | creation on today's commodity computing devices. Another | way to put it is that this is a discussion about | friction, and the original comment was specifically an | observation about static friction, and you're talking | about kinetic friction--while also insisting that the | original comment is wrong because you want the subject to | be the latter and not the former. It's a weird, overly | hostile, and uncharitable way to interpret the other | person's words. | | The original comment as it stands is fine. Don't expect | to be able to interpret it on different terms than the | way it was meant to be understood. | zepto wrote: | The context is: "Nepalese student learns HTML, | JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone." | | And: "It's easier to program a TI-89 calculator than an | iPhone." | | > The original comment as it stands is fine. Don't expect | to be able to interpret it on different terms than the | way it was meant to be understood. | | The comment is complete bullshit in this context. | | > instead of what it was, which is a statement about HCI | and the "implicit step zero" of software creation on | today's commodity computing devices. | | This is simply not true. The comment was a response to a | thread. You have made up a context in which it makes | sense out of whole cloth. | | You can see the comment wasn't meant in this narrow | context because the poster defended it by saying | 'superior in what way?', rather than by clarifying the | context in which it might be valid. | | I miss the days when there was an instant on programmable | device. We need that again. It would be great if iPhones | shipped with Swift playgrounds as a pre-installed app for | example. | | Swift playgrounds shipping on iPhone sounds a lot like | the "I wish there was something akin to TI-Basic for | smartphones. A built-in IDE with an interpreted language, | with easy path to compilation." | | So does Pythonista. | | But a ti-84 is not easier to program than an iPhone, | except for in the trivial sense that you can skip a few | taps needed to install a programming app. Other than | that, the ti is strictly worse. | | I agree calculators are a good way to learn a limited | form of programming, however Apps definitely better. If | you want to quibble over the ease of installing an app vs | purchasing a calculator, that's a sideshow to the value | of learning python vs ti-84 programming. | | The irony is that the biggest obstacle to the iPhone | being easy to program is people saying it's hard to | program rather than saying 'use Pythonista' or the like. | cxr wrote: | > The context is: "Nepalese student learns HTML, | JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone." | | It's not. You are ignoring the place in the thread where | the comment appears. | | No one has argued that learning TI Basic is more | worthwhile than HTML, JS, and CSS (or Python) on a mobile | phone. No one has argued for advising someone that they | should be "getting a job if you only know how to program | a TI-84". The claim is strictly that going from 0 to | _hello world_ is easier on a calculator than it is on an | iPhone. | | > made up a context in which it makes sense out of whole | cloth | | Wrong, and posting another comment trying to argue your | uncharitable take won't make it correct or reasonable. Go | pick a fight and declare that the pushback you encounter | is "bullshit" somewhere else. This is stupid. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-07-21 23:00 UTC)