Coding on a phone really isn't something new. With tmux a lot of people created crazy things directly on their phone. In some countries this even is the only possibility to code at all, because there are no laptops.
The example use case images are very funny though! :-)
>> There aren't that many places in 2025 where getting a phone with internet is significantly cheaper than getting some scrappy laptop or desktop.
No, but it's not a choice between a phone and a laptop. You NEED a phone. So you use what you've got. I've done work helping developers in less developed countries and you frequently find they're sending screenshots of code they've written on phones.
I assume he means people are too poor to have multiple devices, and if you only have one it's probably a phone. That said I'm dubious anyone who only has a phone is doing meaningful coding
Huh, makes you wonder if it's actually doing it on his phone or if he has a keyboard and maybe dock and monitor he attaches it to. I suppose my original comment was too broad, there was a point not too long ago when everyone wanted to replace their laptop with their phone. Samsung even let you dual boot linux from your phone with DeX
There's always an edge case. Speaking of which, here's someone who would really benefit from a hard column width limit and limited nesting that modern programmers (particularly ones using various IDEs) so carelessly violate these days.
Following that story as it happened, it was all on the phone with the phone keyboard and he somehow made multiple good Neovim plugins including that very popular one (which I use in multiple configs).
neovim is probably the only sane way you could code like this on a small screen. everything works pretty much the same way it does on a desktop terminal, the only thing you have to get used to is having so many lines wrapped, and not having quick access to some characters like $ or ^, but they can just be added to the toolbar in termux
There are countries where the market for PCs and laptops is really tiny and the stores sell them at markups compared to US/European prices. Many of these countries are low wage countries, too, so these markups have a big impact on affordability.
Having the means doesn't mean the would-be programmer is in charge of the purse. I got my start coding at the local library because my parents wouldn't get me my own computer until I was in high school.
The example use case images are very funny though! :-)