[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)