[gergles]

The point is that the "post-PC era" will make it so that being someone who thinks that you can modify or change the computing experience is relegated to "oddball hobby" status, like it would be if someone today wanted to start playing with vacuum tubes.

The current PC ecosystem lets you explore and create and play and learn on the same tools that you use to consume. You can build a lego kit with the instructions, or you can use the pieces and make something that's uniquely you. You can run the apps on Windows that you download, or you can write your own without asking for anybody's permission.

In the magical "post-PC" world, where everyone is inexplicably using an iPad, you can run what Apple says, period, and if you want to develop something they don't approve of, welp, too bad.

This loss of flexibility, exploration, and sense of wonder is bad for future computing developments and bad for future computer users.

[rdouble]

The point is that the "post-PC era" will make it so that being someone who thinks that you can modify or change the computing experience is relegated to "oddball hobby" status

It was like that during the pre post-PC era, anyway.

[gbog]

Don't agree. I know of many non geeky pc user who learnt to sysadmin their machine and a lan in order to play CS.

[suivix]

You can always ssh to a server and do development work there. That's what I do at my job anyways. It's advantageous because compiling programs on the server doesn't affect the computer you are using.

[fpgeek]

Because children and other people who don't yet know they are interested in programming have many convenient development servers they can ssh to.