Here's just a random example, a full python environment for iPhone/iPad:
I think this is the key problem, no more no less. If I had a decent keyboard I would be much more inclined to write software on my phone. Come on, there isn’t even a shift key, led along the other modifiers.
I think people assume that Emacs is a modal editor like Vim but I'm not totally sure why that is.
Otherwise I agree that the mobile input methods are simply too limiting to work with.
Moving around the cursor is pretty difficult and accessing non-alphanumeric symbols sometimes requires clicking the "modifier" thing once or twice.
The on-screen touch-driven keyboard also takes up at least half of the screen, and shrinking it makes hitting a specific key much more difficult.
There is also the difficulty in holding the phone while doing all of this!
On Android you can connect a regular keyboard to the device and use that, then I think working on stuff could be viable!
This is true by default, but many people do use Spacemacs or Emacs with doom mode enabled which does allow vi keybindings, so I think some people associate it with modal editing.
in another way, it is possible to connect a keyboard to cellphone.
> I think your obvious answer is wrong
You are saying this is wrong:
> The answer is obvious - most people don’t want to do this.
You are saying you believe the majority of people *do* want to learn to program?
I’m my eyes the BASIC prompts at startup we’re there because that’s how you had to interact with computers at the time. Seems like the vast majority of people want to use their phones not program them.
In regards to plugins, someone has to write them. Even if the people writing those plugins use LLM tools to assist them they still need to know how to put software together and how to manage all of the services that those APIs talk to and how to scale their infrastructure along with user growth.