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The hard nerds are the ones who used to have the slide rules at their belt; now they have calculators.

Alan Kay

In a well functioning world, tools and agents are complementary.
ALAN KAY

Agent Complementary Function World Tool Well
Most 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 KAY

Brick Brute Country Force Million Most Much Pyramid Slave Software Thousand Today Very
In success there’s a tendency to keep on doing what you were doing.
ALAN KAY

Do Doing Kept Success Tendency
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
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
ALAN KAY

Best Future Invent Predict Way
But Basic happened to be on a GE timesharing system that was done by Dartmouth, and when GE decided to franchise that, it started spreading Basic around just because it was there, not because it had any intrinsic merits whatsoever.
ALAN KAY

Around Basic Decide Done Franchise Happen Spread Timeshare
Perl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term.
ALAN KAY

Another Example Fill Perl Tiny
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
Understanding- -like civilization, happiness, music, science and a host of other great endeavors–is not a state of being, but a manner of traveling.
ALAN KAY

Civilization Endeavour Host Manner Science Stae Traveling Understanding
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
I fear – as far as I can tell – that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training.
ALAN KAY

Basically Computer Degree Far Fear Java Most Science Tell Training Undergraduate Vocational
Bad criticism drives good criticism out of circulation. You just can’t criticize anything.
ALAN KAY

Anything Bad Criticism Good Out
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
Most creativity is a transition from one context into another where things are more surprising.
ALAN KAY

Another Context Creativity Most Mst Surprise Thing Transition
I don’t know how many of you have ever met Dijkstra, but you probably know that arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras.
ALAN KAY

Arrogance Computer Ever Know Many Measure Met Nanao People Science
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

The hard nerds are the ones who used to have the slide rules at their belt; now they have calculators.

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The hard nerds are the ones who used to have the slide rules at their belt; now they have calculators.

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