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Comment by ineedasername | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't it be even harder to code on this using its limited keyboard? On a phone the soft keyboard may take up half the screen, but that's still at the same size or larger that this calculator, with a higher resolution. That's not to say programming on a phone is a pleasant experience, just that it seems at least a little easier, with much higher cpu/ram/storage resources.

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Yes and no - something that TI-BASIC on the TI-83 series has going for it is that it's tokenized, so directives like `While` or `ClrHome` are actually options, rather than full words. So I don't have to type "While" on the TI-83's cumbersome keyboard, but rather just hit Prgm+5.

I'm making a big assumption that the Python implementation is similar. I don't know this, but where this is a big feature of TI-BASIC, I'd hope it carried forward.

Typing on a soft keyboard sucks. Typing computer code, that has to be absolutely typo free, is totally unworkable. Even a chiclet keyboard like what was featured on the lowest-build-quality home computers from the 1970s and 1980s (e.g. early ZX Spectrum) is miles better than trying to input code on a phone touch screen.

(In fact a bare-membrane keyboard, that was only ever used on extremely-low-specced home computers where only trivial programs would ever be written, arguably provides a better feel than what you'd get from a touchscreen.)

I agree a physical keyboard is better for preventing typos, although one huge advantage of an on-screen keyboard is it can change based on context.

Especially considering the topic of a Python IDE, that seems like an application where predictive text and/or contextual menus could be a huge benefit for many users.

Python is a thoroughly dynamic language, so the scope for "predictive" coding just isn't there. The best language for that is actually something as strict as Agda, where you can build out your code step-by-step by picking your operands from a well-defined list of in-scope bindings, with powerful type constraints guiding your choice at all times. Python is the polar opposite of that, even with the newfangled 'gradual' typing systems that are now being suggested.

I agree even bad keyboards are often better than soft ones, but this calculator isn't qwerty which for my preferences would be too large a disadvantage even over a phone's soft keyboard.

Now, if you could attach a USB keyboard to the calculator, that would be perfect.

It is possible to attach a USB keyboard using a USB-A to USB mini-A adapter. This feature was added to OS 5.1.5.

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