Then, joy of joys, Nokia started using Symbian - I've been using it in its many guises for years. Did you know that Symbian is in fact evolved from Epoch, the OS on the Psion pocket computer? I could believe my luck when I found an in-development port of Python for it, a few years ago now. I love Python, it runs on nearly everything I've got and makes access to the filing systems and any fiddling about I do identical on any OS. Kind of like Java but with *huge* cojones...
And now, in a magnificent gesture, Nokia have bought it, bundled it with their entire front end, along with their competitors front ends (how they swung that I'd love to know!) and given the whole lot back to the people who supported it for all these years. For free?
These are happy days - while I dont see it as much of a threat to MS, or indeed any desktop platform, it is going to take computing out of offices, lounges and bedrooms, and into the real world. That will change the nature as well as the application of programming. Lets face it the mouse/keyboard paradigm has been with us for a long time now...
