[joebadmo]

the post-PC era does not mean that nobody has a PC, it means that people don’t have to buy PCs to do non-PC things.

Fewer people needing to buy PCs to do non-PC things means fewer people buying PCs. Fewer people buying PCs means fewer people exposed to the PC things early on. Fewer people who are familiar with the things that you use to make things.

Seems reasonably lamentable to me.

[wanorris]

Well, suppose all you have is an iPad, and you want to write some code. Sad panda, yes?

Well, not necessarily.

Let's say you go plop down 50 bucks or whatever on a keyboard -- or maybe you don't because you have a bigger tolerance for trying to type code on an onscreen keyboard than I personally do.

Next, you have to locate yourself a web browser. And there's one right there on your iPad already, so you're done.

Next you have to find somewhere on the internet where you can do coding. Here's the first one I found from a quick Google search: http://www.coderun.com/ . It's a browser-based IDE for php or asp.net that allows you build, test, and deploy a website right from the comfort of your own browser. I'm sure there are other options out there, but I didn't look very hard.

So it doesn't seem like you're going to have to work very hard to find a way to learn to write code as long as the web browser doesn't go anywhere. Even on an iPad.

[raganwald]

This is like telling me that it's lamentable that I can't fix a car. Had I been forced to spend many waking hours tuning and maintaining my car, I would have learned something.

Well, I spent those hours programming, and the people who love cars are using the time saved by their iPad to tinker ith internal combustion engines and electric vehicles.

[angus77]

Who's forcing whom to do anything? Why is having the option to do something such a bad thing? Windows gives its users plenty of opportunity to tinker. Most of them don't bother. With the ipad, however, the option itself is taken away.