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Bad criticism drives good criticism out of circulation. You just can’t criticize anything.

Alan Kay

Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.
ALAN KAY

Complex Possible Simple Thing
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
And I realized that informed criticism has completely been done in by the web.
ALAN KAY

Been Completely Criticise Done Inform Realize
They don’t like the idea of having different points of view.
ALAN KAY

Different Ide Like Point View
An important technology first creates a problem and then solves it.
ALAN KAY

Create First Important Problem Solve Technology
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
ALAN KAY

Disastrous Ever First Language Learn Most Program Thing
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
Don’t worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
ALAN KAY

Anybody Do Else Is Do What Worry
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
I’ve heard complaints from even mighty Stanford University with its illustrious faculty that basically the undergraduate computer science program is little more than Java certification.
ALAN KAY

Certification Complain Heard Illustrious Java Program Science Undergraduate University
I realized that my usual approach is usually critical. That is, a lot of the things that I do, that most people do, are because they hate something somebody else has done, or they hate that something hasn’t been done.
ALAN KAY

Approach Done Hate Most People Realize Someone Something Usually
The perfume part is important because it will help find the knowledge again to help get to the destinations the inner urges pick.
ALAN KAY

Destination Help Important Knowledge Perfume Pick Urge
There will be always unresolved ambiguity here.
ALAN KAY

Always Ambiguity
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
It is not a tool, although it can act like many tools. It is the first metamedium, and as such it has degrees of freedom for representation and expression never before encountered and as yet barely investigated.
ALAN KAY

Bare Degree Encourage First Freedom Investigation Metamedium Representation Tool
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

Bad criticism drives good criticism out of circulation. You just can’t criticize anything.

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Bad criticism drives good criticism out of circulation. You just can’t criticize anything.

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Popular Authors

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