One more question - an untapped audience.

Chris wendlec at tcd.ie
Wed Feb 12 02:51:15 PST 2014


On Tuesday, 11 February 2014 at 20:12:16 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Tuesday, 11 February 2014 at 17:37:17 UTC, Steve Teale wrote:
>> You hijacked my topic and converted it into the usual 
>> arguments about lack of infrastructure for D.
>>
>> I'm talking about guys and girls who don't have a computer, 
>> let alone C#. They just have a cheap smart phone that maybe 
>> they succeeded in getting rooted. So is your answer that they 
>> should just use Java?
>>
>> And yes, the C# library is excellent, but D is a better 
>> language, and is easy to use. Get out of the wood and see the 
>> trees!
>>
>> I'm at the other end of my life, with a long view of history. 
>> We should do our bit to help to bring civilization and reason 
>> (back) to the world, not just tell people 'use C#'.
>>
>> A more relevant criticism would be that people who only know 
>> say Swahili won't be able to find out about and use D anyway - 
>> Java either. Sadly my Swahili is not up to it.
> Well, that's the problem, it was kind of a silly question to 
> begin with.  How many Swahili people even have a smartphone, as 
> opposed to a feature phone?  What percentage of them would be 
> able to grasp the concept of rooting, let alone execute it?
>
> I suppose if we were to humor the question, as it's always 
> possible that the next John Carmack is out there somewhere, 
> here's what I'd suggest.  You can get an Android smartphone for 
> as cheap as $50-100 these days.  I'd pick one up that worked 
> with a bluetooth keyboard, as programming on the touch keyboard 
> on your small phone screen is paramount to torture. ;) Then, 
> you have two options:
>
> 1) Download an ssh client app and buy access to a FreeBSD or 
> linux VPS, which you can get for as cheap as $5/month.  This 
> might require a credit card or paypal account, not sure how 
> tough those are to get in the developing world.  You can then 
> ssh into the VPS, download dmd or any other compiler, and code 
> to your heart's content, albeit with some annoying lag from 
> developing over the network.
>
> 2) Root your smartphone and install all the necessary 
> development software, which I'm not sure even exists, as most 
> devs cross-compile to Android.
>
> Both seem kind of far-fetched.  You need a certain basic level 
> of knowledge, wealth, and leisure time to get into programming, 
> which many in the developing world don't have.  But if they 
> really went after it, the VPS option is probably the best bet, 
> at a cost of about $100 up front plus $5/month for hosting.

I suggest Raspberry Pi:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

It was especially designed for the "developing world" (whatever 
that means! A lot of structures and laws in Europe go back to the 
Middle Ages!) It is about £40~50. I saw one, a tiny little thing 
but very powerful.

We send all our electronic rubbish to Africa. Instead of sending 
it there as rubbish poluting the environment and ruining the 
locals' health, we should give them to the people so they have 
something to work with. A lot of devices still work, but they are 
"outdated".


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