[HN Gopher] Show HN: iPad app to help you learn computational sc...
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Show HN: iPad app to help you learn computational science by
tinkering with code
Author : navoshta
Score : 106 points
Date : 2021-07-27 14:33 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tinkerstellar.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tinkerstellar.com)
| Oranj wrote:
| Are there any plans for a web version?
| navoshta wrote:
| No immediate plans, but perhaps in the longer term, sure. Right
| now it works completely autonomously on your iPad.
| enumjorge wrote:
| This is something I'm interested in, but I can't tell if I need a
| physical keyboard for this. It's a coding app so it makes me
| think there's going to be a lot of typing involved, but it's also
| an iPad app and I imagine you wouldn't want a keyboard to be a
| barrier of entry to use the app?
| marcellus23 wrote:
| Isn't that just up to whether or not you _want_ to use a
| physical keyboard or not? Why would the app make it a hard
| requirement?
| navoshta wrote:
| Tinkerstellar works beautifully with hardware keyboards and
| trackpads, but you certainly don't _need_ one to use the app.
| Labs already have all the necessary code in them -- so you can
| simply run it and see what each code snippet does. But you can
| also edit the code and see how output changes, and the stock
| on-screen keyboard should work well for that (I 've added an
| extra row of Python specific keys to it, btw).
| jack_lynch wrote:
| Is there a code to redeem on testflight to able to test it out?
| navoshta wrote:
| Following this link on your device should work without any code
| I think: https://testflight.apple.com/join/Z2vhNox7
| jack_lynch wrote:
| Got it, thanks!
| taxyovio wrote:
| What will be the pricing model?
| navoshta wrote:
| The app and content will be available for free when it launches
| -- although I do have plans to add some paid premium
| labs/content later at some point.
| meflou wrote:
| When are you planning to release it approx?
| navoshta wrote:
| Not sure to be honest, probably later this year (depending on
| how beta testing goes).
| massaixlr wrote:
| This is something I'm interested in, but I can't tell if I need a
| physical keyboard for this. It's a coding app so it makes me
| think there's going to be a lot of typing involved, but it's also
| an iPad app and I imagine you wouldn't want a keyboard to be a
| barrier of entry to use the app? <a
| href="https://aremajans.com/">cast ajans</a>
| navoshta wrote:
| (Full disclosure: I'm the app developer)
|
| I'm looking for beta testers for my new app Tinkerstellar, it is
| similar in concept to Apple's own Swift Playgrounds, but for
| Python and computational science. Essentially, it's a collection
| of interactive tutorials, where you can edit and run code
| examples straight away -- no need to configure environments,
| download datasets, or rely on networking connection. I refer to
| these tutorials as labs, and the app is called Tinkerstellar --
| because you learn by tinkering with things!
| wheremiah wrote:
| You may want to consider allowing people to register to be
| notified after beta when its GA. There's probably a decent
| number of people who are interested but for whom signing up for
| TestFlight is too much friction.
| navoshta wrote:
| Great idea, I'll add a link to newsletter on the landing page
| -- thank you!
| asicsp wrote:
| Such posts might fit "Show HN", see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
| navoshta wrote:
| Thank you! Apologies, I'm somewhat new to HN.
| localhost wrote:
| This is really nice. Congrats on the release!
|
| How are you running Python on the client? Is it Pyodide or
| something else?
|
| I see from comments below that you also created juno.sh which
| also looks great. May I ask what your users have been using it
| for primarily? Is it for learning or for doing? The reason I ask
| is that I'm wondering if the hardware limitations of an iOS
| device have been limiting for folks "doing" vs. "learning"?
| Sometimes I find even my 64GB TR1950X rig here with an NVIDIA
| RTX2080 limiting :)
| navoshta wrote:
| Thank you! Both Tinkerstellar and Juno embed a Python
| interpreter built for iOS from CPython, no WebAssembly.
|
| As per what people use Juno for -- great question! I think it's
| a combination of both, but leaning towards learning (hence I
| had an idea to launch Tinkerstellar). The hardware is somewhat
| limiting, but I think it's the iPadOS that is the primary
| limiting factor here. That said, according to feedback I hear
| Juno is still great for prototyping and drafting something
| quickly, not just for learning -- and some people absolutely do
| use it for serious work.
| localhost wrote:
| Thanks great to know that folks can get work done on an iPad
| too.
|
| What is it about iPadOS that's limiting for juno.sh? The
| difficulty in putting two apps side by side (I still need to
| Google how to do it on my 11" iPad Pro running iOS 14.7.1!)
| or something else?
| navoshta wrote:
| The limitations are more on the under-the-hood side of
| things, e.g. you can't link any compiled code after you
| submit the app to the App Store -- which means no way of
| letting the user install arbitrary packages (something a
| Python IDE could definitely use!). Also very aggressive OS
| behaviour when it comes to handling computational resources
| wrt 3rd party apps, it's things like that.
| yardie wrote:
| Are there any plans to release a macOS edition, Catalyst or
| otherwise?
|
| iPad is in heavy rotation in my household. And sitting down with
| it for 1-2 hours isn't really practical. Even the cats get to
| play with it.
| navoshta wrote:
| Yes, certainly. It will likely be an M1 Mac app first, but
| Catalyst would be the ultimate goal (so that it's available on
| all Macs, not just those on Apple Silicon).
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Would be cool if cats can learn to tinker with code. A whole
| new generation of cat and mouse games by the actual target
| audience.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Looks neat, I'm all for more accessible programming resources! Be
| careful not to make it _too_ powerful though, Apple has a mean-
| streak of shutting down IDEs on iPad.
| navoshta wrote:
| Thank you! Apple has been merciful to my other app Juno (it's a
| fully-fledged IDE), at least so far: https://juno.sh
| halfhalycon wrote:
| Why iPad only?
| navoshta wrote:
| Mac is certainly on the roadmap, and iPhones' screens seem a
| tad small for something like this to be honest.
| Will_Do wrote:
| I think this is really neat and I also like the HN tagline "learn
| computational science by tinkering with code" better than
| learning how to code and Data Science for Middle/High Schoolers.
|
| I've been wanting to see something like this for a long time &
| think it's pretty neat!
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(page generated 2021-07-27 23:01 UTC)