Re:Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? ...
by analog31 on Monday December 19, 2016 @05:09PM
(#13215419)
It's certainly not as good as it could be. I have a "convertible" laptop, where the screen detaches from the keyboard to become a tablet. It runs Windows 10, so I can run the Jupyter server and a browser directly on the device. I've also played with Azure Notebooks, but I don't always have Internet access.
This isn't my only computer, and indeed doing anything with code from a touch screen is marginal at best, but at least it's possible. On a bigger computer, of course I get a bigger screen and keyboard.
Admittedly, I had to look up what Metro and WIMP are. I'm not actually trying to create apps that others can use. My use of programming is largely for my own productivity and learning.
Microsoft screwed up badly when they decided you can't put a Metro style interface on a Win32 program and get touch support that way.
You either have to make it a Metro app (and ship it via their store), massively curtailing what you can do, or stay with the Win32 WIMP. And even when you tweak the size of various Win32 elements it is still a mess to operate via touch.
Edit: and using jupyter with a tablet strikes me as accessing a mainframe from a terminal (something a micro could act as with the right software).