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| Interview: Alan Kay |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-07-11 10:15:44 |
| Andrew Binstock interviews Alan Kay, and there are just so many fantastic quotes and insights in there I have no idea what to pick as the OSNews item. This one? "Pop culture holds a disdain for history. Pop culture is all about identity and feeling like you're participating. It has nothing to do with cooperation, the past or the future - it's living in the present," Kay argues, "I think the same is true of most people who write code for money. They have no idea where [their culture came from] - and the Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs." What about this gem? "I was never a great programmer. That's what got me into making more powerful programming languages." Or, my personal favourite: "My interest in education is unglamorous. I don't have an enormous desire to help children, but I have an enormous desire to create better adults." Read this. Now. That's an order. |
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| "Pop culture holds a disdain for history"? |
| By No it isnt on 2012-07-11 10:40:36 |
| Funny. I've got a book with the subtitle "Pop culture's addiction to its own past" right here on my desk. If anything, pop culture since 1990 has been a long series of revivals. |
 - Score: 2 |
| I have a new God. |
| By l3v1 on 2012-07-11 11:58:09 |
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> So extracting patterns from today's programming practices ennobles them in a way they don't deserve. It actually gives them more cachet. You couldn't imagine how many debates I've been through in that topic. And how good it felt reading the man. > I mean, look at it: The job of an operating system is to run arbitrary code safely. It's not there to tell you what kind of code you can run. He should be crowned. Really. |
| - Score: 3 |
| Comment by Radio |
| By Radio on 2012-07-11 13:00:46 |
|
This interview was awesome. Really. "A lot of people go into computing just because they are uncomfortable with other people. So it is no mean task to put together five different kinds of Asperger's syndrome and get them to cooperate. American business is completely fucked up because it is all about competition. Our world was built for the good from cooperation. That is what they should be teaching." |
| - Score: 2 |
| The guy is an Elitist |
| By lucas_maximus on 2012-07-11 13:07:42 |
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TBH, the whole "you must first appreciate the history before you can enjoy something". I don't know the whole history of classic music but I do like the Four Seasons. It is elitistism, just another form of intellectual snobbery. Edited 2012-07-11 13:07 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: The guy is an Elitist |
| By Radio on 2012-07-11 13:27:17 |
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> TBH, the whole "you must first appreciate the history before you can enjoy something". I don't know the whole history of classic music but I do like the Four Seasons. It is elitistism, just another form of intellectual snobbery.The four seasons... You mean the hotel chain? |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE: "Pop culture holds a disdain for history"? |
| By kokara4a on 2012-07-11 13:31:23 |
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> If anything, pop culture since 1990 has been a long series of revivals. Maybe because the consumers don't remember it! So it feels new and wasn't too much of an effort to come up with. Just a thought.. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: The guy is an Elitist |
| By Soulbender on 2012-07-11 13:40:09 |
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I feel strangely compelled to agree. Is this one of those watershed moments? > I consider jazz to be a developed part of high culture. Anything that's been worked on and developed and you [can] go to the next couple levels. Uh, right. The stuff I like is better than the stuff you like, mainly because your stuff is more popular and mine is, you know, better. Because I say so. > That's why I never use PowerPoint. PowerPoint is just simulated acetate overhead slides, and to me, that is a kind of a moral crime. Sometimes a slide is just a slide and it is all you need. > It solves a thorny problem that the other churches haven't touched in 2,000 years. Uh, is getting Socrates into heaven some sort of major theological issue that I've never heard of? To be honest, it sounds not all unlike "damn youngsters, get off our lawn". |
| - Score: 4 |
| Comment by ShadesFox |
| By ShadesFox on 2012-07-11 13:50:42 |
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You can't order me around :E Though I'm going to click the link anyways. |
| - Score: 1 |
| Prior developers of object-oriented languages (Simula) |
| By Nth_Man on 2012-07-11 14:06:48 |
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From the article: > Interview with Alan Kay By Andrew Binstock, July 10, 2012 The inventor of object-orientation, No. He is not. The computer language "Simula" was made in the 60s and it was an object-oriented language. Prior to what Alan Kay did to Smalltalk (in the 70s). "A disdain for history"? :-) "Dr. Dobb's" isn't what it was. Edited 2012-07-11 14:18 UTC |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Prior developers of object-oriented languages (Simula) |
| By moondevil on 2012-07-11 14:38:52 |
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Maybe it is you that needs to learn from history. Alan Kay was already speaking about objects in 1963, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obj... |
| - Score: 2 |
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