[louisgoddard]

There's some info in a Stack Overflow answer here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4891642/interpreter-for-t...

"Apple started officially allowing programming language interpreters in the iOS App store late Q3 of 2010 (they changed their SDK agreement to clarify this). However interpreters (except for Javascript in a UIWebview) are not allowed to run any downloaded code. Only code built into the app, or typed in by the user."

Not sure where he's getting that from, though.

[CJefferson]

Thanks, I shall go and have a look and see what this supports.

I have recently been convincing various family members and friends that they should buy their children a real, cheap, laptop instead of an iPad. If you can only have one machine, I think it should be one they can create their own content on, just in case they want to go that route.

I know the iPad has a few things (art programs), but it isn't a replacement for a computer. Worryingly many people seem to think it is, for children (who I would hope would be creative).

[louisgoddard]

Yeah, it certainly doesn't seem like a good idea to lock a child into such a closed environment, particularly if it's one of their earliest exposures to computers in general.

[rayvega]

The developer of Python for iOS, Jonathan Hosmer, mentions that he is prevented by App store policy to provide the functionality of importing external sources into the app.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3633968

However, another HN user found a clever workaround using python's builtin exec and urlib:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3634837 http://myblog.rsynnott.com/2012/02/fun-with-python-for-ios.h...

[pudquick]

My name is in the credits for Python for iOS as I provided the pure python patches for urllib to even work in the first place :)

There is also a link in the credits next to my name for my github repo which contains the original patches, plus some new code I just uploaded (shpy - a pure python shell-alike, with bash-like file name globbing and file download + unzip)

https://github.com/pudquick/PythonForiOSPatches

I also was involved in working with the requests/urllib3 maintainers to get these modules working in Python for iOS, as it didn't originally ship with ssl support.

My original patches could self-install with a simple one-liner copy&paste, which then gave you the '_rp' module (now included in the app).

I will add a similar one-liner for the installation of shpy (and better documentation) but should you get it installed, operation is as follows:

from shpy import *

shpy()

Currently there is a bug with raw_input where the prompt is printing after text has been entered, so I'm working around that right now.

I also plan on adding untar support, PyPI pure python module installation, and WebDAV.

If you have questions, let me know.