black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Perl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term.

Alan Kay

Bad User on Device is a medium that can dynamically simulate the details of any other medium, including media that cannot exist physically.
ALAN KAY

Any Bad Detail Device Dynamical Medium Other Simulate User
[Computing] is just a fabulous place for that, because it’s a place where you don’t have to be a Ph.D. or anything else. It’s a place where you can still be an artisan.
ALAN KAY

Anything Artisan Computer Else Fabulous Just Place
I had the fortune or misfortune to learn how to read fluently starting at the age of three.
ALAN KAY

Age Fluent Fortune Learn Misfortune Read Start Three
I think the trick with knowledge is to “acquire it, and forget all except the perfume” – because it is noisy and sometimes drowns out one’s own “brain voices”.
ALAN KAY

Acquire All Except Forget Knowledge Perfume Think Trick
So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world.
ALAN KAY

Eight End Five Inch iPhone Presentation ule World
And when they decided to beef up their OSs, they went to (different) very old bad mainframe models of OS design to try to adapt to personal computers.
ALAN KAY

Adapt Bad Beef Computer Different Mainframe Model Model Decide Old Personal Try Went
And to the extent that we do not violate any known laws of the universe, we can probably make it work the way that we want to.
ALAN KAY

Extent Known Probably Universe Violate Way
Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.
ALAN KAY

Complex Possible Simple Thing
The flip side of the coin was that even good programmers and language designers tended to do terrible extensions when they were in the heat of programming, because design is something that is best done slowly and carefully.
ALAN KAY

Best Careful Coin Designer Even Extension Flip Good Heat Language Programme Side Tend Terrible
The idea that hardware on networks should just be caches for movable process descriptions and the processes themselves goes back quite a ways.
ALAN KAY

Back Catch Description Hardware Idea Movable Network Process Quiet
In computers, every ‘new explosion’ was set off by a software product that allowed users to program differently.
ALAN KAY

Allow Computer Differently Explosion Off Product Program Set Software Under
Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we’re all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories.
ALAN KAY

Boardroom Briefcase Cavemen Hungry Just Person Scratch Surface Typical Wise
In success there’s a tendency to keep on doing what you were doing.
ALAN KAY

Do Doing Kept Success Tendency
The greatest single programming language ever designed
ALAN KAY

Design Great Language Program Singer
There will be always unresolved ambiguity here.
ALAN KAY

Always Ambiguity
A new friend is new wine, when it grows old, you will enjoy drinking it.
ALAN KAY

Drink Enjoy Friend Grow New Now Old Wine

Perl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Perl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Kay Quotes