TR Forums

I have a Nokia Symbian phone and just started writing code for it using Qt in my free time. Forget about the actual platform though. My point is as follows.
Seeing my code run on a phone is a lot of fun! Sure I used to do lots of things with my phone before (email, web browsing, games, voice calls the usual) and yes I did customize the phone and settings to my liking before, but writing code gives you so much freedom and suddenly my phone feels like an empty slate waiting to be molded into whatever shape I decide to
Suddenly you start thinking of thousands of things you can build with your phone! You go from user or even power user to builder/constructor of stuff!
It is the same feeling I had many years ago when as a kid I first discovered programming for the PC.
So developers, current and aspiring, if you do have a smartphone of any kind (never mind the particular type), do try out writing anything for your phone! It might be a simple to-do list application, a game, to a control-this-robot-over-bluetooth or whatever. Writing for phones is fun so do try it!

The catch is that if you have a android or ios phone than you likely don't need to write anything for your phone because it's already been written. I spend a lot of time sandboxing life but i don't think i'm going to waste time coding stuff that is already easily available.

Heiwashin wrote:

waste time coding

Umm I actually like coding. And I am doing it for fun. My phone also does nearly everything I "need" it to do. That was not the point. The stuff I am writing is for the pleasure of writing stuff. I know and understand that not everyone loves. For nearly any activity that one can do for pleasure, one can say "waste time doing X" . And well, not everything has been written for any OS (whether mobile or desktop) .. or else we should all just fire all software developers in the world because we don't need any new software
Thats about as sensible as saying: why make music of your own when I can listen to millions of songs made by other people? And surely we dont need new songs when we already have millions? Why make art when I can go and see other people's paintings in an art gallery? And surely we already have millions of art works so why make a new one?

You apparently understood my post as you quoted it, but it doesn't have the same meaning in that context.

codedivine wrote:

, not everything has been written for any OS (whether mobile or desktop) .. or else we should all just fire all software developers in the world because we don't need any new software

That would be exactly why i typed the rest of the sentence that you ignored.

codedivine wrote:

Thats about as sensible as saying: why make music of your own when I can listen to millions of songs made by other people?...Why make art when I can go and see other people's paintings in an art gallery

Once again verifying that you didn't understand my post at all. Yes, it would be pointless and annoying to make the same song millions of times. Maybe that's why i don't care for christmas music much. Yes it would suck of people made the same piece of art millions of times.

codedivine wrote:

And surely we dont need new songs when we already have millions? And surely we already have millions of art works so why make a new one?

Still you seem to have imagined something in my post that i didn't say. At any rate art and songs are not analogous to programming in any way anyway. Both of those are art. Programming my be an art of science, similarly to cooking, being that good programmers are creating art compared to bad ones by not making bad mistakes, but it's not an art, it's a program made to fulfill a purpose. My point is really that there's no point in encouraging people that don't already have intentions of doing such a thing as a career or serious hobby already, because there's practically nothing to gain from it.