There is a significant difference between Apple and Amazon here. On Amazon, when I buy a "season pass" that means I buy all the episodes in the season that are already available outright and I agree to let Amazon bill me for each new episode as they're released. When I bought Season 5, I paid for one episode at a time with a small discount in the price.

That is, I didn't pay a one-time fee with the expectation that I'd get the whole of Season 5. I paid individually for each episode as they were released. (Which, by the way, you can cancel at any time.) I did have to "buy" the second half of Season 5 under the same terms. That was an inconvenience, sure, but a minor one. Given the length of time between the first and second half of Season 5, it could be seen as a positive as I could have lost interest in the show.

In short, I knew exactly what I was paying for with each transaction.

Had I paid a flat-fee up front for the whole of Season 5 and only got the first half, I'd been upset as well. Season 5 means Season 5 -- not half of Season 5.

Even worse, if the poor fellow from the article expected to get the entire fifth season for 22.99, he may have thought he was going to pay less than he would had he bought it through Amazon. As it turns out, he paid quite a bit more. If price was a factor in his decision, he got screwed twice.

Cite, please?

It isn't thalidomide, after all. The only thing I could find was a tenuous link to low birth weight.

Did you just get back from imagination land?

Because it's not an issue.

Read your own link and think about what is actually being said.

Was that so hard?

You're fight a losing battle. You can get them to look at the facts. You can't even get them to read past the word "militia".

You're not dealing with sane and rational people here. They're frightened -- absolutely terrified of any number of imaginary threats. They're looking for something to blame, and they're eager (practically desperate) to trade their rights for even the faintest illusion of security against it! It's sad, really. I'd pity them if they weren't also actively trying to erode the rights of other.

I'm still a strong supporter of the ACLU, despite their incompetent (or, as you suggest, hypocritical) position on the 2nd amendment. They do an awful lot of good.

I'm not a newcomer, so it is difficult to understand that perspective. I have taught intro courses, so I have a sense of it. As far as how much you need to know to get a desktop app running on Windows vs. iOS, I'd still say you need to know significantly less. iOS development isn't bad at all, but it's certainly not the easiest option out there. (I'm thinking of Objective C and Lua here.)

I have no idea what tools you're making the comparison against, but I recommend dropping them immediately, as you're clearly making more work for yourself than should be necessary!

Kind of the minimum option, isn't it? As for what you can buy, there are quite a few options in the $200-$300 range that, obviously, will outperform the iPad mini and last 3+ years. If you're willing to buy refurbished, you have even more options.

  You'd be amazed at how much life you can get out of a computer these days. Even a mid-range desktop from 2006 can easily meet the needs of the average user. I have little doubt that you'll easily get 3+ years out of a bargain basement $200-$300 computer purchased today.

All of this ignores the fact that many students already have access to a PC or are more likely have access to a PC than an iPad. That is, it's not necessarily an additional cost or consideration.

That is cheap. Not a bad find. I'll recant the expensive bit, but will note that it is still an additional cost.

No advantage at all! Even with every possible accessory, you still lack an incredible amount of the functionality you'll get out of a cheap netbook.

Of course, that's completely beside the point as the number of accessories has nothing to do with the iPad as an option for beginners to learn computer programming.

Who said anything about writing desktop apps? We're talking about learning to program, aren't we? There are tons of options. (For example, my younger brother taught himself to program by modifying and then creating his own game mods.)

As the the "practical path" the iPad is certainly NOT a practical path to learning how to program! (See my earlier list.) That it can be done is irrelevant. I can teach someone to program with a CARDIAC as well, but it wouldn't be the best choice!

I'm going to guess that's the issue here. You like the iPad and it can potentially meet that need, therefore it's at least a good option, and in your eyes it's the best option? I just can't get behind that. It doesn't make sense to me when there are (to some degree, objectively) better options on all of the criteria I listed, and I'm certain some criteria that I have not. (You're welcome to list your own criteria, it could be helpful.)

By steering beginners away from the iPad as platform to learn computer programming, I'm doing them a great service! I'm giving them more options. I'm giving them options that are far simpler for beginners than Objective C and Lua (which I think we both agree are not good first languages). I could even be saving them hundreds of dollars!

You're welcome to love the iPad all you want, but it's just not a good option for the task in question. Even if we could agree that it could be a viable option, that's a long way from "a good option" and further still from "one of the best options".

Be objective here. For the task at hand, is the iPad a good option in comparison to the other options available? The answer is pretty clear.

We're in complete agreement here. When we were kids, programming was a lot easier to learn.

I strongly disagree. The options are extremely limited, and significantly lacking compared to the options available on an inexpensive pc, to which more students are likely to have ready access.

As an example, I'll offer Microsoft's Small Basic as a decent beginner language. It's not perfect (what is?) but it's a lot better than high-visibility failures like Scratch.

There are better, and more accessible, options for free online. In that specific case, I don't believe that it's exclusive to iTunes or the iPad.

Quite a bit. Still, I disagree that iOS development is easier. I honestly don't see why you believe it to be significantly easier than writing desktop applications on Windows or Mac?' (Admittedly, I haven't written anything for the Mac in a very long time. Development on Windows hasn't exactly improved over the last decade, but it's certainly not difficult. I'm of the opinion that it's still quite a bit easier than iOS, if for no other reason than the wealth of great tools.) iOS is one of the easier mobile platforms to develop for, but I don't think it's the easiest. (Yes, Android development is horrible, I'm not arguing that!) WP and BB are the clear winners there.

I'd further argue that Objective C and Lua are just as rotten an option for beginners as C#, Java, Python, etc. Whatever the language, the additional barriers imposed by the iPad as compared to other platforms make it a non-starter.

On specific criteria, if this helps you understand my perspective better:

Cost: iPad is more expensive than most options.
Options: The iPad has significantly fewer options for development than other platforms.
Resources: Having fewer options means fewer tutorials and other learning resources.
Hardware: The iPad lacks a physical keyboard. I've poked out code on a touchscreen in an emergency, but it's not an experience I'd like to repeat! Sure, you can buy an expensive BT keyboard, but that adds to the cost.

On the contrary, the iPad is the worst of all possible options by any reasonable criteria you can imagine.

Be objective.

Sounds like Apples approval process isn't terribly strict. Those would appear to violate their own rules.

ToolBook is still around. I remember it being very similar to HyperCard.

It's been a while since I've used it (1996 or so) but may be worth a look if that's the sort of thing you're after.

Don't be stupid. Put on your thinking cap and figure out how you would answer the following questions:

Do some students learn to program with their TI-8x calculators?

What percentage of students learn to program with their TI-8x calculators?

Of the students who learn to program with their TI-8x calculators (if any) are below average, average, or above average?

It was. The results were disastrous.

No, just the first. Occasionally the last.

(They often eagerly engage in all of those things, though they tend to publicly denounce the bulk of them.)

Indeed I did, though I had Asimo in mind when I wrote the comment.

Or you could just push them over, slowly walk up a set of stairs, toss a towel over them, or any of a zillion simple ways to significantly disable them that even the fattest mall-cop would easily overcome.

You do realize that "Idiocracy" is not only fictional but built on a faulty premise, right?