If 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 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 KAYAs in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way.
ALAN KAYHaving an intelligent secretary does not get rid of the need to read, write, and draw, etc.
ALAN KAYI 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 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 KAYArt also has this element. Our job is to remind us that there are more contexts than the one that we’re in – the one that we think is reality.
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 KAYAny company large enough to have a research lab is too large to listen to it.
ALAN KAYPerl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term.
ALAN KAYPeople are willing to pay you if you’re any good at all, and you have plenty of time for screwing around.
ALAN KAYThe 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 KAYWhen I first prepared this particular talk…
ALAN KAYThe hard nerds are the ones who used to have the slide rules at their belt; now they have calculators.
ALAN KAYAs far as Apple goes, it was a different company every few years from the time I joined in 1984.
ALAN KAYThe soft nerds are the ones who get violently ill whenever anybody mentions an integral sign.
ALAN KAYSchool is basically about one point of view — the one the teacher has or the textbooks have.
ALAN KAY