[oliwarner]

> they don't need anything but a browser these days

Sure, assuming you only want the next generation of young adults to be able to look things up on Google and use Facebook.

When my school tried to teach me how to use MS Word (I was 13) I laughed. I already knew everything there was to know about it.

Of course none of this was innate, nor did I know it just because I was young. Eight years earlier when I was having my first play with computers (much to their detriment) and I would play, yes play with word processors. I didn't have anything to write but I learned WordPerfect. I learned MS Word. Hell, I learned most of MS Office and several versions in-between my first encounter and my Year 9 ICT training.

The newest generation is growing up on touch devices. It's great for the arts, I suspect but it's the end of kids who'll just load up a Word processor just to see how it works. They'll need to be taught.

[calinet6]

Ahem. Google Docs? MS Office Web Apps? Etc?

There's quite literally an app or site for almost everything on the internet.

It's great that you think your curiosity and drive for knowledge is somehow unique in this world, but I suspect you're wrong and just have a damn-kids-get-off-my-lawn mentality. The web has only made knowledge and possibility more accessible, not less, and it's naïve to think that it's a dumbed-down version of the "incredible software" you grew up using.

[oliwarner]

Oh please. Google's word processor is barely half the application compared to what I was playing with 15-20 years ago. A proper desktop word processor is a lot more than shoving words on a page.

Okay, perhaps that is my "damn-kids" mentality but design and interface metaphor have totally kicked function's ass in the past five years. You don't have to look far to see some major examples of that (Win8, Gnome, anything on a tablet/phone). The applications I'm talking about can only be consider equivalent to a point.

So yeah. In terms of productivity (and useful life skills) the software I grew up with is better than what a kid with a tablet has today.

I also used to really love browsing Encarta 95. I do look up a ton of stuff on Wikipedia these days but I rarely go there without direction.

[fmoralesc]

Can you script google docs? That's how I "played with my word processor" when I was a kid (I was a bookish kid and read every manual in my computer; turns out many were about VB scripting and the Windows API... I was intrigued). I suspect many more did. If people had access only to web apps, they couldn't have those kind of experiences; I think that's what the parent commenter points to. Now, I don't actually think these kind of things are becoming extinct, or anything like that: it's easier in many ways nowadays. But the web by itself still has some way to go to fully provide them, also because it is so huge. I've started to rant, so I'll end here.

[icebraining]

Can you script google docs?

Yes: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/overview

By the way, I started programming in '99, and since I didn't have a computer at the time, I learned JavaScript, since I could run it on IE4 on public machines. So yes, a browser (and, I guess, Notepad) is really all you need!

Besides, since then and between PHP/Python/etc shared hosting and tools like Codeanywhere (which can talk to S/FTP servers), a web browser is enough for building web applications.

(Of course, the web is far from reaching the potential of desktop development, of course. But it has come a long way already)

[fmoralesc]

> Yes.

Neat! I eat my thoughts (It's the kind of thing I miss by using vim for almost everything).

EDIT: But it is a separate app...

[icebraining]

Not exactly:

"The script editor can be accessed directly at http://script.google.com, or by launching it from one of the Google products which support built-in access to the script editor, such as Google Spreadsheets and Google Sites."

In Spreadsheets, you just need to go to Tools → Scripts → Script Editor.

[wutbrodo]

Not a separate app, in any meaningful sense of the word. I use it extensively for personal use; I have a couple spreadsheets online involving personal data and I just click a button in the menu for spreadsheets to open up the script editor.

[calinet6]

If you haven't noticed, you can script the entire web. It's the most "scriptable" platform yet, and it's way more fun and open and flexible to play with than any of the older APIs.

If you're the kind of person who looks under the hood, you're going to do it regardless of whether you're working on a desktop word processor or a web app, and it is my strong opinion that these kinds of intelligent and curios people are still coming into this world.

[fmoralesc]

Agreed, of course.