ipad and programming

J

jeoff_b

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
Messages
133
Alright so I have been googling for days now and cannot come up with an answer for my question.

I know people are completely obsessed about programming apps for the itouch/phone/pad and that is fine, maybe someday I'll try it out too. What I would really like to know is whether you can program other things on an ipad. For instance, I am currently taking a couple classes to learn C++, if I were to buy an ipad, could I load up some app and create a program or some sort? Or is the ipad even able to handle something like this.


I want an ipad mainly so I can read my ebooks easily (stupid ebook readers will only hold something like 2 gigs or 120 books and my collection far exceeds this). It also seems like a fun little toy to play around with. I'm just wondering if this is possible, or maybe I should just be looking into a tablet...
 
My take on it is the iPad is for content consumption for the average guy. Content creation like what you are thinking of would be best left to a real computer.
 
Are you looking for a Mac or PC?

It seems like you need a laptop or tablet. As much as I like the iPad, I don't think it'd be great for coding on.
 
compiling and running any code on any iOS device is impossible due to Apple restrictions. One example would be the DOS emulator that apparently got through app approval somehow a few weeks ago and was instantly yanked.

So basically unless you enjoy programming on one device for the form factor, then sending your code back to a PC for debugging/compiling I'd throw this idea out the window.
 
Remote desktop / VM clients for iPad (I'm not making this up, they exist, right?) are probably your best bet. It's pretty much as the others have said, you can't compile on the pad so you're offloading 99% of the work.

Not that there's anything wrong with that though... just don't expect the iPad to ever be a full computer replacement, it's an I/O device on steroids
 
There are a bunch of clients for RDP or VNC etc but now think of all the special keystrokes and symbols you have to use when programming, that would almost certainly require a BT keyboard be added to the mix to aid code entry, or you would be dealing with the touch screen for symbols which is a PITA.

I like my iPad but even simply marking up some bb code on forums sucks when you need four keystrokes for a stinking bracket "[ or ]" on the iPad.

There are just things the iPad is suited for and things it isn't. When you are sitting there on a wifi network with your BT keyboard compiling something on a slow RDP connection and then the wifi drops I think you will realize you should have sprung for a laptop.
 
Thanks everyone for your responses. Those are pretty much the answers I was expecting, I just have been looking for something to outright say it and haven't been able to find it anywhere. Very helpful with the VNC thing though, never even thought of doing it that way.

I didn't figure I would be doing much programming on it, I do have a laptop, it's just nice sometimes to not have to lug a laptop around or be restricted to a desktop and still be able to get some work done. I'll probably still get one as they have some pretty cool features that I'm sure I could find a use for in my work somehow :rolleyes:
 
jeoff_b said:
I'll probably still get one as they have some pretty cool features that I'm sure I could find a use for in my work somehow :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

This is how the iPad sells. It's just so friggen 'magical' people buy them and look for ways to use them, instead of the other way around.
 
I RDP to my home machine all the time when I'm on the go or out and need to do some minor stuff. I even have an FTP app that I can connect to my website's host and do minor edits on the fly.

However, if I need to do something extensive I will never, EVER, do it on my iPad. It would take way too much time.

I think one of my favorite things about my iPad is making web apps for it. 4.2 is bringing more HTML5 goodness out too. So I do sort of the opposite, program on my PC to do stuff on my iPad. Much fun.
 
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