To get the medium’s magic to work for one’s aims rather than against them is to attain literacy.
ALAN KAYTo get the medium’s magic to work for one’s aims rather than against them is to attain literacy.
ALAN KAYThe greatest single programming language ever designed
ALAN KAYIn a well functioning world, tools and agents are complementary.
ALAN KAYAs in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way.
ALAN KAYPerl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term.
ALAN KAYA change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. Perspective is worth 80 IQ points. Point of view is worth 80 IQ points
ALAN KAYArtificial intelligence is what we don’t know how to do yet
ALAN KAYThe best way to predict the future is to invent it.
ALAN KAYThe only way you can predict the future is to build it.
ALAN KAYIf we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing a part of our lives?
ALAN KAYThere is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves.
ALAN KAYScience requires a society because even people who are trying to be good thinkers love their own thoughts and theories.
ALAN KAYMost software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.
ALAN KAYChange is easy, except for the changed part.
ALAN KAY[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 KAYIf you’re utopian, you’re never satisfied.
ALAN KAY