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".
