Apps Programming for the phone on the phone

[FatBear]

My nephew would like to learn to program a computer. As a former (20+ years ago) computer engineer, I am well aware how vague that desire is at this point, but I'd like to help him out.

The only computer he has is his Android phone. No desktop, laptop, tablet, etc. and won't be. He has good basic intelligence and lots of time No, he's not in jail . But he is in his 30s, itinerant, and won't be taking any classes.

Is it possible to program on the phone itself? Can anyone suggest a starting point? A simple one. Probably whatever the 21st century equivalent of a basic interpreter and editor would be. Or does Android have a shell and shell script capability? I could probably help him with any of those alternatives, but hopefully there is something simpler and/or more modern because he really needs something to feel superior to me on.

Thanks.

 

[FatBear]

Another thought just occurred to me. What about HTML? Is there a decent editor for the Android phones? And is it possible to build a website in the phone's memory and access it from the browser? That would give him easy feedback in an environment he is familiar with and he could go on to PHP or maybe others from there.

 

[GeorgeN]

AIDE is pretty good, and they will sell you programming lessons as an in app purchase. But you will want a bluetooth keyboard. I'm not sure it will be much fun on a phone sized screen though.

 

[FatBear]

Thanks, I will check it out.