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Every technology really needs to be shipped with a special manual – not how to use it but why, when, and for what.

Alan Kay

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
School is basically about one point of view – the one the teacher has or the textbooks have.
ALAN KAY

Basically One Point School Teacher Textbook View
I knew in the first grade that they were lying to me because I had already been exposed to other points of view.
ALAN KAY

Already Behaviour Expose First Grade Point Try View
When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free?
ALAN KAY

Error Free Last Scale Technology Time
Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable.
ALAN KAY

Activity Computational Computer Contact Deep Enjoy Enough Equipment Fluent Literacy Make Read Write
The hard nerds are the ones who used to have the slide rules at their belt; now they have calculators.
ALAN KAY

Belt Calculator Hard Nerd One Rule Slide Use
That language was Joss, which predated Basic and was beautiful.
ALAN KAY

Basic Beautiful Joss Language Predate
There is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves.
ALAN KAY

Consumer Curve Desire Learn Society
This tends to result in very dumbed-down products that are easy to get started on, but are generally worthless and/or debilitating.
ALAN KAY

Debilitation Dumb Easy General Product Result Tend Worthless
The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution hasn’t started yet.
ALAN KAY

Ahead Come Out Real Romance Yet
If you’re utopian, you’re never satisfied.
ALAN KAY

Country never Utopian
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 result is – document destruction – we’re really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we’re going to come to.
ALAN KAY

Able Beyond Come Conclusion Destruction Document Negative Positive Prove Result
Lisp isn’t a language, it’s a building material.
ALAN KAY

Buil Language Lips Material
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.
ALAN KAY

Internet Man Made Most Natural Ocean Pacific People Resource Something Think
If you’re not failing 90% of the time, then you’re probably not working on sufficiently challenging problems.
ALAN KAY

Challenge Fall Probably Problem Sufficient Time Work

Every technology really needs to be shipped with a special manual – not how to use it but why, when, and for what.

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Every technology really needs to be shipped with a special manual – not how to use it but why, when, and for what.

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Popular Authors

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