4 Jul
2012
4 Jul
'12
12:24 a.m.
On 07/04/2012 03:08 AM, Mark Benson wrote:
Desktops (by which I assume you mean "non-tablets", and include
"laptops") may be going out of "fashion", but they're not going
away.
Software developers, and don't underestimate how many there are, aren't
coding on tablets. Real computers will continue to have a place for a
long time to come.
For the rest...I have an iPhone, the epitome of the "closed platform".
Within minutes of trying, I had a UNIX shell on it, I had a compiler
running on it (running ON the phone) and had built simh. Now I hack on
OS/8 and RSTS/E on my iPhone 4 whenever I don't have access to a real
computer and have some time to kill. (details upon request, I've
re-done all this under iOS 5.1.1)
People will always have a way to get around those little limitations.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Sure,
but...does anyone actually believe that this will actually
come to pass? I mean, heck, there are hobbyist-designed computers
almost literally FLYING off the shelves these days, witness the
Raspberry Pi and its ilk. Apple's continued good luck with iPad
sales won't put a dent in the popularity of stuff like that (any
more than it could put a dent in, say, sales of boxes of nails) and
it certainly won't stop people from designing new ones.
Exactly. People who care about being able to futz with stuff will
continue to futz about with stuff they can futz with. Some will play
with open stuff and use closed stuff as a 'commodity' device, like I
use my iPhone. Others will hack their commodity devices to make them
do what they want. The problem here is not that the change in
paradigm of deices kills xyz it's that the ideas of how devices are
built and work are changing rapidly and the open community needs to
catch up and stop pushing OSs and software for desktops when they are
going out of fashion as anything other than overgrown games
consoles.