iphones kinda come with a 'how to program an iphone app' tutorial, where by come with i mean the internet. presumably most of the comments here are focused more on the existence of tutorials at all, not on implementation. still, the state of open api's is growing tremendously (twitter, facebook<--confusing as all heck but lots of tutorials, greasemonkey).
i don't get what people are talking about. maybe that's because i'm not a video game or linux nerd. i don't like c or assembler or l33t h4x0ring. i mean, i'm not very good at it. but in the past 2 years i've learned how easy it is to program and make things. wow--i can make a twitter app. wow--i can make a robot. wow--i can make a real website. there are so many opportunities that weren't available before, especially in the realm of tutorials and thoughtful introductions.
People tinkering with programming don't care about APIs, they don't even know what an API is. Have you seen how much code is required for a Hello World application for the iPhone or how many people there are complaining about Objective-C's syntax?
BASIC on TI calculators is very popular among kids because they can figure out how to write a program during their math class. You don't need much reference to write a text-based game or a program to help you cheat on a geometry quiz.
i understand the advantage of scripts. my sister loves python now because she can munge csv files much faster now (she's a scientist)
api's allow people to do cool things. they're libraries. kids would find programming on a calculator much more tiresome if they had to write the multiplication method first.
i guess tinkering with a calculator is fun, but that seems kind of old school, and also pretty narrow (in my day the kids with the fancy expensive calculators were the ones taking APs and headed towards private colleges).
writing a 10 line python script that does something with twitter or other social networks--tons more fun than math.
I reckon a smart kid with a couple of days work could have an IM bot that his friends could chat to, and all the kids are into IM now, doing cool stuff that impresses your friends is powerful encouragement to take it further. Even those kids with calculators were doing it to impress other geeks...
i don't get what people are talking about. maybe that's because i'm not a video game or linux nerd. i don't like c or assembler or l33t h4x0ring. i mean, i'm not very good at it. but in the past 2 years i've learned how easy it is to program and make things. wow--i can make a twitter app. wow--i can make a robot. wow--i can make a real website. there are so many opportunities that weren't available before, especially in the realm of tutorials and thoughtful introductions.