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Microsoft TouchStudio Uses Phone To Program Phone
theodp writes "Over the weekend, Microsoft released the beta of TouchStudio, a free Windows Phone app that allows one to write programs for a phone on the very same phone, no computer required. According to the Microsoft Research project page, the work-in-progress TouchStudio aims to bring 'the excitement of the first programmable personal computers to the phone.' Among the code examples provided is a four-liner that scans a phone's music collection for songs less than three minutes long and produces a fairly slick, clickable playlist complete with track info and artwork. Easier than iPhone SDK programming, no?"
So, it appears to be not true programming, but just script manipulation? Wouldn't that be like Tasker for Android?
http://tasker.dinglisch.net/
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
Not a new concept, mShell for Symbian
And here I am, reprogramming my phone with pliers, soldering iron, some wires, a(n) USB connector and a resistor. I must be doing something wrong.
It matters here. Windows Phone 7 hasn't been jailbroken, even if you want to (and if you think the Chevron hack is a jailbreak, you need to turn in your geek card). And the iPhone SDK is so much richer than the WP7 SDK, that any comparison is a joke (just try networking on WP7.....you will quickly start hating your life).
The summary claims it is bringing 'the excitement of the first programmable personal computers to the phone.' No, to me it looks like it is bringing the excitement of visual basic to a phone. I got much more similar excitement from Android or iPhone comparable to the first programmable personal computers that from WP7. WP7 is an exercise in frustration if you want to start hacking at the lower layers.
Caveat: I may have trouble understanding what a beginning programmer might think of this.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Or python, perl, lua, tcl, with Qt, Gtk or Tk on the N900. I'm always amazed how companies like Microsoft and Apple manages to first push the paradigm that "less is more" (no scripting, no inventive GUI concepts, no access to phone applications, but "magic") and then they throw you breadcrumbs of what they took away and people get all excited and the news even makes it into slashdot...
Android has had more powerful scripting for quite some time: http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/
As there are > 300,000 apps already on the App Store, and continually growing, they don't really need to do anything to inflate numbers.
The reasons Apple limits programming to developing using the standard SDK and delivering through the App Store include:
1) It's a one stop shop for users. If they want an app to do something, then they know exactly where to find it. If it's not there it doesn't exist. For users, that's really nice and easy.
2) It means that if developers charge for their apps, Apple gets a cut.
3) It means that developers have to keep to the guidelines for what an app can do. The functionality has to pass by a reviewer.
4) There's only a single platform to keep secure.
To understand and accept these reasons, you have to understand that the iPhone is a phone for ordinary people. Not hackers.
I used to enjoy and get benefit from programming my Psion 5 in OPL on the device. But I can't say I'm too bothered about programming a touch screen phone. I wouldn't want to program on a touch keyboard that small. However it'd be quite nice to be able to do it on an iPad. But it's less important than that list of reasons above.
The Nokia N900 came factory default with a text editor, xterm and a python runtime with sdl bindings.
would be so much happier with a N900 running vi & gcc.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
I constantly see comments on here about how phones and tablets are crippled devices that could never be real tools because you can't do things like programming on them. Then MS (the great and scary evil thing) makes something you can program on and now it's "lame, late, not good enough". Just come to grips with your biases please.
It's not an either/or, you can have a user-friendly phone with advanced features
Unless the carriers don't want to carry your phone. In the United States, the big three wireless carriers have only a small selection of phones, and they tend to shun anything that gives the user too much freedom. Nokia hasn't been able to get any major U.S. carrier to take the N900 (for which I'd appreciate corrections), and buying a phone and service separately is something that the vast majority of subscribers just don't do, for various reasons. Verizon and Sprint, which use CDMA2000, are reluctant to activate any phone that they didn't sell. Even AT&T, whose GSM system in theory lets subscribers bring their own phone, still forces each subscriber to take a "free" phone whose price is included in the monthly bill instead of giving a discount on the monthly bill for not providing a phone.
we heard you like to program, so we put the program in your phone so you can program while you phone