Why Is It Worth Waiting For Pandora?

[aaronson911]

RetroGaming

 

[AireTamStorm]

I've similar sentiments. It is an open platform, completely free, and non-lolsoft. Open Source projects really do decent things for technology. I really hope this project sees success far beyond its initial community-centric intentions, perhaps through partnerships or through some slick and well-placed online advertising.

On the note of learning to code: You shouldn't be forced to learn Word and Visual Studio in High School / College, you should be able to learn HTML / XML and standard programming languages with standard libraries (C/C++, Python, or Java now that it is going open). Classes should be taught with cross platform tools, or strictly advertise that they're specialty classes using a specific commercial product. I absolutely despise the fact that when I look into a C++ class at some college they expect me to have either Visual Studio running on a Playskool themed OS, not to mention they can't step one foot out of a hold-your-hand IDE.

The pick-up-put-down ability of the Pandora will really help me bring my coding projects to fruition.

 

[Alpha2]

I'm surprised no other company has tried that yet. I guess they're afraid that leaving Windows will keep anyone from buying it.




Anytime they make a device like this they use windows and create their own problems (or some would say barrow the ones already created) then they under power the device and over charge for it... or it's made by Apple.



The whole thing is and effort to keep selling people "stuff" if they made the pandora the way it has been made by this team they'd never beable to feed themselves because of all the overhead they had and revenue they'd expect it to keep making after it gets out the door. No one is looking to get rich off of micro-payments with the pandora, and even if they did they probably wouldnt because there will be so many free apps and games that no one would ever need to use them unless they wanted to.

 

[kin]

Because it's free in terms of "open". But like others said in the posts above, i totaly agree.

 

[mrpham]

... expect me to have either Visual Studio running on a Playskool themed OS, not to mention they can't step one foot out of a hold-your-hand IDE.

Actually, I'm glad Visual Studio has its many extremely beneficial "hold-your-hand" features. When everything else is secondary to your productivity in a development environment, there's no shame in taking advantage of tools designed to maximize the use of your time.

 

[aaronson911]

... expect me to have either Visual Studio running on a Playskool themed OS, not to mention they can't step one foot out of a hold-your-hand IDE.

Actually, I'm glad Visual Studio has its many extremely beneficial "hold-your-hand" features. When everything else is secondary to your productivity in a development environment, there's no shame in taking advantage of tools designed to maximize the use of your time.


+1

 

[IASheer]

I think it's worth waiting for because the Pandora will be a nice cross between two electronic worlds. A laptop computer, and a handheld game console.

Emulation aside, that fact that the Pandora could run Firefox means you can use it for web browsing. It's got an actual OS it can run, so you can install programs on it and use them like you would on a Mac or PC, and still have a gaming experience.

It has USB OUT. So you can plug in a mouse, keyboard, joystick, flash drive, digital camera, et cetera. That feature alone more than 60% sold me on this.

It's simply an amazing piece of technology.

Tripmonkey's post
QUOTE
"Personally I'm hoping that a lot of the Pandora's later batches will be bought by colleges and university's world wide to help students learn how to code. "


I currently attend a tech school- the University of Advancing Technology (UAT's website) - and this is the kind of portable device that would be useful here. I'm willing to be the robotics lab would love having something portable like this to take with them for adjusting code on the fly for their projects. (There's probably other useful things we could use it for, but I'm a visual design major, and the programming stuff goes right over my head. ^^;; )

Either way, I'm going to wait eagerly for mine to arrive, if only to show it off and see if anyone else would want to buy one.

 

[jlepley]

It looks easy to develop for and its pxml-based packaging system makes it easy for programmers with limited resources to make their applications look good and easy to access.

 

[Pleng]

Personally I'm hoping that a lot of the Pandora's later batches will be bought by colleges and university's world wide to help students learn how to code.

What would a Pandora provide that help students learn to code that a fully fledged PC doesn't have?

And can you really see educational establishemtns spending money on devices that are *that* easy to pinch?

 

[Eight Bit]

Because it's made of win!

 

[lulzfish]

It would be cheaper for them to install Ubuntu on a few lab computers and have the students develop on them, but even this is far too expensive for most universities.

Mine is upgrading their sports and recreational bullshit again. <_<

 

[torpor]

Because its been designed by people I know and trust to put a lot of effort into the important details, and being able to have a discussion with the hardware designers and principle system architects is an excellent consumer *AND* developer experience.

And because, its going to really, really rock to be able to take it out of my pocket and use it to demonstrate my applications and software development effort. I really can't wait to *CODE* for the thing...

 

[Prometheus]

Regarding the educational stuff; Limitations are one thing that strike me as an advantage. How much software is there now, that goes unoptimised purely because excuses such as "Buy more RAM/more storage/a new processor/whatever, because it's cheap" exists, I wonder?

 

[gruso]

Some colleges are giving out iPhones to students now, for development as well as general use. I can't find the posts, but I remember at least two conversations in the dev forum about Pandora being an attractive alternative for students developing software (these posts were from teachers). And don't forget that the GP2X sold thousands under the Vocamaster name.

Education would be an awesome market to tap into.

 

[Trip]

It would be cheaper for them to install Ubuntu on a few lab computers and have the students develop on them, but even this is far too expensive for most universities.

Mine is upgrading their sports and recreational bullshit again. <_<

Would have replied sooner but I've been a little busy today..

It's not the Pandora's job to develop on; you develop on what ever computer/operating system you feel comfortable with and test your programs on the Pandora, as this makes the testing and bug fixing easier.

A program can react differently on computers with different hardware, software and drivers. This can make bug testing a lot harder than it needs to be as the results can vary from computer to computer. Having a dedicated platform to program for removes a lot of the crap that gets in the way and makes learning easier for the students, + makes it easier for the tutor to concentrate on teaching the actual programming rather than him/her spending all there time with only one student chasing driver bugs etc.

All Pandora's will be created equal.. with the exception of how high you can over clock them of course

I can't see a problem with people stealing them. Look at how many photography courses there are, you can't tell me that everyone that goes on them courses owns a analogue/digital SLR camera them selves. The tutors book them out to students as needed and then lock them up tight at all other times. It's not like they need to buy one for every student on the course either, they can share 1 Pandora between 4 people easy if they do the developing on the normal computers.

I did a networking course at Bradford uni last year and the tutor asked me what hardware and software would be best to teach students basic game programming etc. on. I wish I could have told him to buy a GP2X but they needed 3D hardware support which the 2X doesn't have. The Pandora on the other hand would be perfect

I've got to agree with Prometheus too. People who learn programming for systems with limited resources tend to become better programmers, due to them having to optimise and write cleaner code.

 

[jlepley]

Regarding the educational stuff; Limitations are one thing that strike me as an advantage. How much software is there now, that goes unoptimised purely because excuses such as "Buy more RAM/more storage/a new processor/whatever, because it's cheap" exists, I wonder?

That's what my dad says. It doesn't matter that the systems are getting better, people just write crappier and crappier code.

 

[BackAssward]

Regarding the educational stuff; Limitations are one thing that strike me as an advantage. How much software is there now, that goes unoptimised purely because excuses such as "Buy more RAM/more storage/a new processor/whatever, because it's cheap" exists, I wonder?

That's what my dad says. It doesn't matter that the systems are getting better, people just write crappier and crappier code.

You also have to take into account that programming 20 years ago was done by the few capable. Now days tons of technically inept people with no critical thinking are getting into it because they think they can make money at it. You know the kinds of people who think we're all equally sized and shaped cogs, where anyone can be awesome and perfect as anyone else at any job... fools.

 

[Thegerg]

Regarding the educational stuff; Limitations are one thing that strike me as an advantage. How much software is there now, that goes unoptimised purely because excuses such as "Buy more RAM/more storage/a new processor/whatever, because it's cheap" exists, I wonder?

That's what my dad says. It doesn't matter that the systems are getting better, people just write crappier and crappier code.

You also have to take into account that programming 20 years ago was done by the few capable. Now days tons of technically inept people with no critical thinking are getting into it because they think they can make money at it. You know the kinds of people who think we're all equally sized and shaped cogs, where anyone can be awesome and perfect as anyone else at any job... fools.

lawl he said cog

 

[Sphinxter]

It's the craftsmanship that makes it so special, well that and real 3D acceleration, two joysticks, dpad, stereo speakers, keyboard and usb2. Linux, wireless and a decent resolution touchscreen makes me a bit nostalgic too. The frosting would have to be the battery life, no the open source, no the games, the emus, no, all the things you can create for it.