I Am Developing Solely on a No-Brand Android 5.1 Tablet

http://tbf-rnd.life/blog/2019/06/27/why-i-am-developing-solely-on-a-no-brand-android-5-1-tablet/

by zdw • 7 years ago

40 40 7 years ago

chrischen3• 7 years ago

It takes so little Apple to make it possible for iPads to be usable for development work, but they do not. Maybe because it will cannibalize mac sales.

AgloeDreams• 7 years ago

Maybe but Apple tended to (in the past) be a focused company. They decided to not support development in the past so they straight up ran from it, supporting zero parts of it, gaining security benefits. They know the iPad as-is isn't designed for it and have no intent to do it. Now, when they eventually come around, I'm sure it will be in a big, all or nothing, way.

That's kinda the best thing about Apple, they are brutally focused on solving a problem at any cost. Thats why AirPods are so small, the apple watch is so incredibly featured and why they build their own CPUs. Making choices like that sometimes means realizing opportunity cost, you can't have the best of everything.

Meanwhile, in fairness, the Mac is actually a pretty great development platform.

maxxxxx2• 7 years ago

"Meanwhile, in fairness, the Mac is actually a pretty great development platform.

Especially with the Macbook Pro they seem a little confused whether it should be a good dev machine or a super thin high end laptop.

paulryanrogers• 7 years ago

they are brutally focused on solving a problem at any cost.

Except replaceable batteries, anything related to right to repair, or even calculator apps that reliably work beyond 1 digit per second

chrischen3• 7 years ago

The mac is great but the iPad is smaller, lighter, and better battery. They already have git client apps, file manager apps, and code editor apps (even js and python interpreters). They just all work together very poorly.

JasonFruit3• 7 years ago

There is barely an answer to the title question:

So my idea is to follow the principles of universal design, that is that optimizations done on extreme cases translates over the whole spectrum. Also I’m getting valuable qualitative data on current implementations. Let me tell you this, for someone developing / administrating with the lingua Franca of computes i.e. UNIX/shell computing power is not the issue. Here I’m dealing with a 512 mb tablet.

I'm not sure I understand what that means, but that's all the answer we get. (The writing quality is as poor as the reasoning.)

Konnstann• 7 years ago

From the quote I think he means that optimizations done on shitty hardware will translate to optimizations on good hardware, and that the computing power of the tablet is plenty for the dev/admin tasks he uses it for(?)

JasonFruit3• 7 years ago

That's what I got, but it seems to clash with his assertion that computing power is not the problem. Whatever — I've already devoted too much time to this post.

TBF-RnD12• 7 years ago

correct

TBF-RnD12• 7 years ago

How can you tell that the reasoning is bad if you can't parse the sentence?

Also had this not been written with two thumbs, maybe the result would've been better. Embarasing as it may seem, it just goes to show the unsuitability of tablets for productive use!

Normally I have spellchecker for times like these but unfortunately she's sick :( Didn't expect to hit HN frontpage before she had time to look at it.

JasonFruit3• 7 years ago

Because, frankly, your article rambled and lacked a coherent point.

kayoone2• 7 years ago

What a strange article, going on about the PC history in Sweden, hacking on the Quake2 codebase and VR headsets to one small paragraph that actually discusses the title of the article without really answering the question in any satisfying way.

TBF-RnD12• 7 years ago

I am starting out by using what's available so that I can apply the lessons later. As I'm in that phase naturally there are no answers.

Does that make it clearer?

xemdetia• 7 years ago

No. The way that you structured this whole article is strange. It doesn't feel as you read through that you are talking about the title nor does it feel like each subsection is connected in either way. Generally a reader expects: introduction to concept, hypothesis/argument based on introduced concepts, supporting arguments for or against the hypothesis, and finally a conclusion. I feel like you are missing the introduction entirely, so a reader has to assume the title is your argument (as sometimes appears in news articles). Given that argument you end up wandering through 3 sections that do not seem related to that title, and at the end I still have no idea what you wanted to say.

There is no conclusion or resolution to what was introduced so I still can't fathom what you are trying to share. It feels like a situation where only half the thoughts hit the page and since we don't know the context we can't fill in the gaps.

Our issues are in the actual writing of the post, not as much what you are trying to say because we can't even get to that.

joecot• 7 years ago

Your "article" reads like four or five separate blog or facebook posts scrunched together with no rhyme or reason. And it has the setup of a clickbait article, luring you in with a question, going on about a bunch of stuff not related to it at all, and then finally approaching the question at the very end but never _really_explaining it. Complete with a link to an unrelated software project and a separate link to donate to you (and we're donating for ... what? A VR input method you didn't really explain and has nothing to do with the headline?)

As a blog post for a random tech friend people follow, sure, that's fine. But I don't understand why this was posted to hacker news, and I don't understand why people voted it up.

kayoone2• 7 years ago

Didn't mean to be blunt, but I had no idea how the sections fit together and what you were trying to say. Clearly I am missing the context which others seem to have, since it's on the frontpage of HN.

thesuperbigfrog• 7 years ago

termux (https://termux.com/) is a great way to develop on Android devices.

It works great and brings familiar and powerful tools to your Android devices for development and IT needs.

TBF-RnD12• 7 years ago

This is what I am using! Couldn't cope with it. As a wm substitute of sorts I use tmux. VIM really helps out a lot as well.

cylinder714• 7 years ago

If I were going to do serious work with Termux, I would invest in Bluetooth keyboard.

imtringued2• 7 years ago

It really isn't. Try developing openjdk based applications on it. It's a mess.

fooblitzky• 7 years ago

I've given this a serious try a few times, on both phones and tablets, because I am keen for an ultra-portable dev setup. Unfortunately Android falls pretty short, even though Termux is amazing. I've never been able to stick with it long term.

For me, a much better small and cheap dev setup is the Raspberry Pi, particularly the new Raspberry Pi 4. Pair it with a bluetooth keyboard, a portable Monitor, and a battery pack, and it's nearly as good as a laptop, but much more hackable. And you get an actual GNU/Linux development environment.

TBF-RnD12• 7 years ago

I've been eyeing the rpi as well. Here's the thing though I'd rather use it with gamepads or haptic glove input and with VR headsets. This would mean that it truly would be mobile, i.e. you could use it on an airplane!

drtyolmck• 7 years ago

Good for you?

rijoja• 7 years ago

Server struggling a bit with HN frontpage:

internet archive to the rescue: https://web.archive.org/save/http://tbf-rnd.life/blog/2019/0...

imtringued2• 7 years ago

I feel like this is missing the point. Why bother with an inferior tablet that only runs a tiny subset of software specifically optimized for it? You can just get a used Thinkpad for $100 and have a decent linux experience without any compromises. You certainly won't have to mess around with stupid gloves to increase your typing speed. If the people you are targeting are so poor they can't even afford to spend $100 on a device that will last at least 5 years then you're solving the wrong problem. They are not suffering from a lack of inferior computing devices, they are suffering from poverty. The OLPC laptop basically already did what you describe in your article, ultra low spec hardware with special software written for it and it was a massive failure and the reason was not a lack of funding. The reason is that just handing out hardware isn't enough. The users still need to be educated. This means either learning English so they can have access to the vast amount of information on the internet or creating learning resources in their native language. Both options are non trivial and require the concentrated effort of thousands of people.

Really the takeaway should be that making things cheaper runs into diminishing returns quickly. Frugality doesn't make you less poor. Using that crappy 500MB RAM tablet might save you only $60 over the Thinkpad with 4GB RAM but it requires an incredible amount of effort compared to simply earning $60 more.

Kajayacht• 7 years ago

I write code all the time using my iPad, though I'm connecting to a Raspberry Pi over SSH and using a bluetooth keyboard.

I should blog about it.

I Am Developing Solely on a No-Brand Android 5.1 Tablet

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