iPad and coding

[strangedave]

To add my own voice to a Daring Fireball piece
Cory Doctorow wrote

The original Apple ][+ came with schematics for the circuit boards, and birthed a generation of hardware and software hackers who upended the world for the better.

Alex Payne wrote

if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today.

My first

Comments

[owlrigh]

This. People who really are into IT are going to have more than one platform to play with, anyway, and a child who likes computers is going to play with the ipad, read stuff about ipads online about hacking them, whatever, and then pester their parents for some other computer to do the things with they want. Hell, they can go down to the local puter shop and get a box for almost nothing if they want to stick to the second-hand stuff! Tinkering in the innards of a box is a good fun way of learning what's what.

I've had all sorts of computers, from very basic stuff you couldn't boot without a floppy disc (and one with a tape...) but I've never felt the urge to program, personally. Other people have done it for me ;)

An ipad is awesome for what it's meant to be: an easy-to-access option for the web, any news sites you want to look at, video. Instant access internet. It's for casual users, not those who want to tinker, and I bet it'll bring people in to *want* to tinker because of it -- hey, this is cool, what about this other thing? And yes. It goes from there.

TL;DR: I agree with you.