Theodp writes "In the Sixties, we could put a man on the moon. Nowadays, laments jocastette, America's tech giants can't even put a BASIC on the phone. Woz managed to crank out a BASIC interpreter for the 6502 in the '70s. As did Bill Gates and Paul Allen. So, why — at a time when headway has never been easier — can't Google, Apple, and Microsoft manage to support a free BASIC or other programming-for-the-masses fare encompassment on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones?"

My limited suffer with Android growth showed using Java to be obtuse and downright obnoxious to do all (at least without Eclipse, and even with it doing whatever at all non-standard forced digging through horrendous ant buildfiles). And, of course, with a REPL things were even more obnoxious. There is the android-scripting project, but it doesn't provide particularly exhaustive access to the platform.

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