Shouldn't be to hard to make an HTML5 based programming tutorial or programming environment that exposes javascript via eval and saves the resulting snippets in the local storage...

> While its going to be hard to get any kind of interpreter on the device, I'm sure someone will succeed eventually - and then we could well have a generation of kids who grow up programming because of the device.

Yes, someone will eventually succeed. There will be a jailbreak for this device which will turn it into a more interesting platform for students and technical users.

The complaint is that it should have been this way from the start, and we're betting on a flaw in Apple's design in order to get the most of their product.

I was thinking more of getting something past the app store approval process. I think if it was obvious it couldn't be used to circumvent the store itself it might have a chance. Jailbreaking will happen sooner rather than later I'm sure.

Why would a jailbreak be needed? What am I missing?

An iPad developer could compile up copies of some of life's goodies like bash, emacs, Perl, Ruby, Python, some lisp variants, Apache, etc.

Then the developer write a little Mac-application which let the user apply for the Apple Developer program. When that is granted, the application installs the developer tools and downloads the iPad projects for emacs, etc.

Every user which use scripting applications will be his/her own developer. Without jailbreaks.

I'm pretty sure you have to pay $100/year to sign up to the iPhone dev program and I imagine the iPad dev program will be the same. So your idea works fine except for the part where everybody who wants to install your package will first have to pay Apple $100. I'm not sure how many people will be willing to do that just to start learning about programming.

>>I'm not sure how many people will be willing to [pay a tax of $100/year] just to start learning about programming.

Huh, learning? That is like saying people won't buy a car so they can learn to drive... :-)

A user could have an iPad to write and/or run suitable scripting programs. Like emacs. [Edit: Or other programs written with Perl/Python/Ruby/Lisp etc.]

If that is worth a tax of 8-9$/month will vary between users.

> If that is worth a tax of 8-9$/month will vary between users.

And between teenagers who may or may not have access to dad's credit card, or between countries who may or may not have access to that program ;)

This also means that a user won't be able to install some software with a single click ... he'll have to first go through the registration process, with a valid credit-card, and some time on his hands.

I really don't know why people try to downplay this. If this model gets popular (and it already is to some extent because of the iPhone) ... devs and many regular users simply get proper fucked.

>> This also means that a user won't be able to install some software with a single click

>> ... many regular users simply get proper fucked.

My point was to suggest automation of the process. I didn't imply that this would be painless, just less painful than jailbreaks.

If it becomes common, even Steve Jobs will have to give in and have a simple checkbox for allowing scripting apps. (Like different sets of installable applications in Debian/Ubuntu).

If I recall you can't use any scripted languages on the ipod as part of the developers license. Has that changed?

You can't distribute any scripting language interpreter (and thus no apps written in a scripting language) via the app store. However there is no reason why you cannot install a scripting language and use it on your own phone if you have the dev tools.