I have no doubt that the computing device that my kids will use is going to look more like the iPad than my beloved Atari 400, and that they won’t care one damned bit about how they can’t solder a keyboard into it. Maybe one of them will be interested enough to program it, learning Objective C or Newspeak or whatever Apple will command. Maybe someone will write a (compiled, Apple-approved, DRM’d) HyperCard for the iPad, and they’ll use that. Maybe there’s a iPad version of Rocky’s Boots on the horizon. Maybe the device will just be a beautiful, convenient interface to the great open platform of the Web, and they’ll program there. Maybe they won’t program at all.
Maybe they’ll just get stuff done, without having to worry about interrupt conflicts or file systems or DLLs or viruses or moths squished in relays. Maybe, instead they’ll write a novel, or paint a picture, or use technology in ways that we can’t even dream of, because some significant percentage of the crap that we currently suffer through just to get it going will be gone. To dismiss them as mere “consumers” because they may not be programmers — because they may not waste their lives fetishizing the rituals of a dying priesthood — is arrogant and insulting.
