First there was this tweet, that gave me visions of people trying to learn code with Nokia 3310s…
Then then he followed it up with this.
The idea is that they’ll take used/old laptops from donors, wipe/refurbish them and give them to people who want to learn to code (they have to meet the criteria first).
This is a great idea. That’s how Andela started, like play, like play…
Interesting. I have been in these shoes before. When my laptop was stolen, I had to continue learning to code on my phone (not even a smartphone!), for 2 years. It’s doable, but it’s a real pain. Nice to see someone stepping up to fix that, at least for some people.
How did you do that? I just read about someone who’s trying to design a code learning environment that works on phones (she calls it “platforming”) and it sounds really difficult. And this is 2017.
Initially, when I was using a “dumbphone”, I learnt from websites online and tried out code using online compilers like http://ideone.com. It got annoying sometimes because I would finish typing a program (on a T9 keyboard! 
) and then everything would disappear. Plus, it was really limited, because sandbox.
Later on, when I got a smartphone a year later, I switched to apps like AIDE (built my first Android app on my android phone 
), Cppdroid, and C4droid.
Eventually, when I got a PC, and there was no power, or it had a fault, I would switch to mobile at times. I came to discover that, thanks to open-source, coding on mobile isn’t so… out there (I wouldn’t recommend it for newbies, though). In the past year, I’ve run Git, PHP, MySQL, Bootstrap, C++, Java, Android, Python, Octave/MATLAB and others on mobile. (Even saw an article about using Laravel and Composer on Android). Even now, when I need to make a quick fix, and I’m on the move, I just do it from my phone and git push.
Coding on mobile has its downsides. Very limited testability is one. Limited APIs available. Limited processing power. And autocorrect 
It can be useful, but it’s a pain. And only those who are really passionate about coding pull through.
That said, the sparkplug stuff is really awesome.
Oga i hail…
Did basic front end in XHTML on my Nokia 6085,
Was doing it online on http://wapka.mobi with my 10mb bonus from etisalat 
This was 2011 tho.
Good times
LOL, I can’t.
Exactly this!
Yup. Mine was 15mb bonus. Used to last for a week…On an itel torchlight phone.
I wrote my first code on paper.
(’_’ )
Because apparently if you study CSC in a Nigerian school it’s possible to write code and compile it on paper.
The mere thought of getting laptops, any laptop, may well be an upgrade. Awesome.
Don’t even get me started on the silliness of this. Or how the geniuses in the science faculty decided that FORTRAN was the most appropriate and only thing to teach in a course that’s titled “the application of computers to law”. Now that I think about it, the whole premise of the course itself was pretty silly.
I wrote my first code on paper too, after using my blackberry tour 1 to browse through tutorials on web development then, before i wrote my first program, it took almost two years.
Honestly why after over 23 years they still teach FORTRAN as only language beats the jesus out of me.
its 2017our so called Comp Sci Professors wont come close to some CTOs in Startups and you wonder why future Gen are self learnt in Comp Sci from theory to application…Thank you Google, Github and Youtube.
You did FORTRAN too? I feel like we should hug ._.
FORTRAN and TURBO PASCAL. Took me years to get over my dislike for programming - I thought it was pretty lame and pointless based on that skinny-dip.
It was a sham, of course, I remember nothing of that nightmare.
Lmao. Neither do I. Probably a good thing.
Loooool @lordbanks @skywalker
Must have been a traumatic experience.
Thank God I’m not studying Computer Science!
Inspiring… Am having problems with my Laptop and I have a smartphone , I code sometimes but with what you just shared am going to keep coding… #Nogivingup…
Can someone please recommend a site with good Php material, really in need of it… Advance Php to be precise done with the basics.
Try out Team Tree House
Sitepoint too for some free tutorials