"Programming" as a concept is more accessible to people than it's ever been. Some years back I tried to break into React development (I'm an iOS developer, but only with native code and wanted to expand my skills) and I had built a simple app in a language I'd never used before with tooling I'd never used before up and running in a couple of hours. I'm sure my prior experience in software helped some, but I cannot overstate how completely different the tooling was between one and the other.
If you want to build websites, there are more tools and options than ever. Basic HTML editing and markdown files paired with something like Jekyll, hosted on Amazon S3 is basically free, minus the cost of a domain, and is done with simple HTML and text files, with massive community-driven documentation and support. If you want a fancier website, PHP/MySQL are extremely mature, well documented, with probably billions of code samples available and who knows how many libraries. If you want to build apps, Swift playgrounds is excellent, and Swift itself is an extremely flexible and comprehensible language, and Kotlin on Android is quite similar as I understand it. If you want to automate your daily life, Macs have a whole selection of shells, and PHP can work there too. Windows meanwhile has batch files, powershell scripts, and if you're willing to do a little work, bash can be had too.
And more and more and more. 3D printers with GCODE automation, arduino microcontrollers, raspberry pi's to make dumb electronics smart on your own terms. I could come up with examples for the rest of the day if I wanted and probably not repeat myself.
And anytime you run into a problem, you can slam an error message into Google, and pretty reliably find something/someone that can help you, and many of them absolutely will because we all love this stuff and love solving problems and helping each other out.
This notion that Apple has failed to bring programming to the people is fucking bizarre to me. Programming is with the people. A lot of people don't wanna do it, that's fair. A lot of people don't have the skills, or the desire to get them, completely understandable. But to say it's inaccessible is just wrong. It's all out there. Whatever you want to do, there is probably a solution to it if you're willing to put the time in, as has been the case with basically any other skill for all of human history.
> "Programming" as a concept is more accessible to people than it's ever been.
I really don’t think this is true. The programs and web sites we interact with nowadays are far more complex than they used to be, so building something feels far less approachable.
I feel lucky that my first exposure to programming was on 8 bit machines in the 80s and then got to learn web programming in the PHP era.
It provided a gentler introduction than starting afresh nowadays would.
> I really don’t think this is true. The programs and web sites we interact with nowadays are far more complex than they used to be, so building something feels far less approachable.
I mean, sure, you can't build your own Amazon or Facebook in an afternoon. But that is not the sole domain of programming.
Just like building a model RC airplane for your own enjoyment involves a lot of similar principles to designing a Boeing 767, but one is magnitudes more complex to pull off. But also, few individuals find themselves wanting a Boeing 767, and instead want a model RC airplane.
"Programming" as a concept is more accessible to people than it's ever been. Some years back I tried to break into React development (I'm an iOS developer, but only with native code and wanted to expand my skills) and I had built a simple app in a language I'd never used before with tooling I'd never used before up and running in a couple of hours. I'm sure my prior experience in software helped some, but I cannot overstate how completely different the tooling was between one and the other.
If you want to build websites, there are more tools and options than ever. Basic HTML editing and markdown files paired with something like Jekyll, hosted on Amazon S3 is basically free, minus the cost of a domain, and is done with simple HTML and text files, with massive community-driven documentation and support. If you want a fancier website, PHP/MySQL are extremely mature, well documented, with probably billions of code samples available and who knows how many libraries. If you want to build apps, Swift playgrounds is excellent, and Swift itself is an extremely flexible and comprehensible language, and Kotlin on Android is quite similar as I understand it. If you want to automate your daily life, Macs have a whole selection of shells, and PHP can work there too. Windows meanwhile has batch files, powershell scripts, and if you're willing to do a little work, bash can be had too.
And more and more and more. 3D printers with GCODE automation, arduino microcontrollers, raspberry pi's to make dumb electronics smart on your own terms. I could come up with examples for the rest of the day if I wanted and probably not repeat myself.
And anytime you run into a problem, you can slam an error message into Google, and pretty reliably find something/someone that can help you, and many of them absolutely will because we all love this stuff and love solving problems and helping each other out.
This notion that Apple has failed to bring programming to the people is fucking bizarre to me. Programming is with the people. A lot of people don't wanna do it, that's fair. A lot of people don't have the skills, or the desire to get them, completely understandable. But to say it's inaccessible is just wrong. It's all out there. Whatever you want to do, there is probably a solution to it if you're willing to put the time in, as has been the case with basically any other skill for all of human history.