1. do hackers all have smartphones now? i'm just curious to see the mobile device statistics. sometimes i feel like people are emotionally responding in the same way that folks confuse twitter's recent growth and hotness with facebook's sheer size.
2. hackers have always had access to terminals and remote servers. i would never want to code anything serious on a random machine. hackers take customized l33t setups seriously. even if i had access to my code (a quick repo checkout would solve that...no need to carry usb around) most random machines don't even have the necessary hacking tools (ff with sqlite manager? preffered .bash_profile and .emacs?)
are you instead suggestion that the entire dev environment is on the smart phone, and i simply dock into the keyboard, screen and mouse to start coding? that would be hot. it's exactly like connect to a remote server except that the server is not remote and is portable.
3. i've already forgotten why hackers is a reasonable market to care about.....aren't most people not hackers? i'm not even sure i consider myself a hacker [and all i want to do is make things. i'm just not the conventional hacker in that i don't want to waste time on IT and i don't have a non-collaborative ego problem].
In order to make a living, Hackers must write software that people want. So where ever hackers goes, their customers follow?
If hackers find the environment to be hostile and a pain, they probably will consider a different market that isn't so hostile to their entrepeneural effort. Given time, the inertia of the previous hostile platform will flip toward what hackers want.
I have a Nokia n800 (previous model was the n770, follow on is n810, now n900) with an iGo bluetooth keyboard (folding - great for portability, not great for typing). The display is 800x480 so it is vertically challenged, but usable (with good bifocals ;-).
I've used it with ssh into a remote machine and also at meetings to take notes on. If I were doing extensive typing, I would get a compact non-folding BT keyboard - I hear the Apple one is pretty good for size and touch-typing.
The n800/n810/n900 has enough horsepower to do light weight lifting, including a SD/microSD slot that give "unlimited" storage space. The n810 and n900 have built in keyboards (not a replacement for a BT keyboard) and the n900 does "TV out".
By the time you bundle in a keyboard, the recharger, various wires, etc., you might as well lug around a netbook. On the other hand, I carry my n800 everywhere in my pocket - it may be difficult to do something on the n800, but it still beats a netbook that was left at home.
I also have an Acer Aspire One that is touch-typeable and has a larger display at 1024x600 (still cramped) and an OLPC - display is interesting but the keyboard is not touch typeable, the CPU is pretty slow, and the battery life isn't very good :-(.
Pocket-carry is qualitatively different. I have ideas all the time but don't want to carry around a backpack with my laptop. Once I need a backpack or bag, there isn't that much difference for me between a netbook and a "real" laptop.
From your description, the n900, a decent BT keyboard, and video display glasses work well. All those pieces can be carried in coat pockets. Might be a little hard with a rigid BT keyboard. I regularly carry the cables etc. for display glasses, a folding keyboard, and an iphone or touch pro 2 in my coat pocket without problems. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for the development I'm doing now -- I use it mainly for displaying and responding to e-mail & twitter.
I've been thinking about different kinds of coding interfaces for a while. I do think that code is represented better as a graph/tree of connected text blocks rather than a series of large files. I want to be able to drag things around more easily.
Unfortunately, I don't have any concrete designs to go along with these vague notions. I'll come back when I do.
Perhaps it's worth considering chorded keyboards? They're smaller than regular keyboards, and the rate of input is much faster. For a certain segment of the population the tradeoff could be worth it, but you can't find them in the right form factor -- for now.
I'm referring to two handed chorded keyboards, for example of the type used by stenographers: stenotype machines.
"A stenotype, stenotype machine or shorthand machine is a specialized chorded keyboard or typewriter used by stenographers for shorthand use. In order to pass the Registered Professional Reporter test, a trained court reporter or closed captioner must write speeds of approximately 180, 200, and 225 words per minute at very high accuracy in the categories of literary, jury charge, and testimony, respectively,.[1] Many users of this machine can even reach 300 words per minute and per the website of the California Official Court Reporters Association the official record for American English is 375 wpm."
You imply that link refutes the idea chording keyboards could be much faster, but it (1) only discusses a single small chording keyboard, the 'Twiddler'; and (2) still suggests "the Twiddler would enable typing and error rates superior to those of the mini-QWERTY keyboard while the user is walking or otherwise mobile".
I did not imply that the article refutes the idea the chording keyboards allow speedier typing, I stated it plainly.
In any event, the parent poster compared chording keyboards to "regular keyboards," not mini-QWERTY keyboards (those are the sort found on cell phones and are distinct from the small-awful-QWERTY keyboards found on netbooks).
they already have those mobile keyboards which are projected onto a flat surface and then use sensors to detect what keys your fingers are pressing right? So why not just have that as the input, the actual device size could be arbitrarily small and still allow you to have a full size keyboard whenever needed...
real development is a long process that requires concentration and endurance, not some quick 1 hour hack, i highly doubt programmers are going to fundamentally change the way they code just so they can do it on their iphone while theyre on the train or at a bar.
as for the screen, im sure eventually we'll have either something similar to the keyboard ( a high quality projected screen ), or some e-paper type screen which when unfolded is full size but folds up into the device.
2. hackers have always had access to terminals and remote servers. i would never want to code anything serious on a random machine. hackers take customized l33t setups seriously. even if i had access to my code (a quick repo checkout would solve that...no need to carry usb around) most random machines don't even have the necessary hacking tools (ff with sqlite manager? preffered .bash_profile and .emacs?)
are you instead suggestion that the entire dev environment is on the smart phone, and i simply dock into the keyboard, screen and mouse to start coding? that would be hot. it's exactly like connect to a remote server except that the server is not remote and is portable.
3. i've already forgotten why hackers is a reasonable market to care about.....aren't most people not hackers? i'm not even sure i consider myself a hacker [and all i want to do is make things. i'm just not the conventional hacker in that i don't want to waste time on IT and i don't have a non-collaborative ego problem].