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A computer scientist is a machine for converting coffee into urine.

Alan Kay

People are willing to pay you if you’re any good at all, and you have plenty of time for screwing around.
ALAN KAY

Anything Else Fabulous People Place Where Will
Possibly the only real object-oriented system in working order. (About Internet)
ALAN KAY

Internet Object Only Order Oriented Possible Raed Subject System Work
Change is easy, except for the changed part.
ALAN KAY

Change Easy Except Part
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
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
Humans are communications junkies. We just can’t get enough.
ALAN KAY

Communication Enough Get Human Junkie
If the pros at Sun had had a chance to fix Java, the world would be a much more pleasant place.
ALAN KAY

Chance Fix Java More Much Place Pleasant Pros Sun World
We cannot predict the future, but we can invent it.
ALAN KAY

Future Invent IT Predict
Television should be the last mass communication medium to be naively designed and put into the world without a surgeon-general’s warning.
ALAN KAY

Amass Communication General Last Medium Naive Surgeon Television Warning World
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
But once the threshold is reached, then everyone demands to do whatever it is.
ALAN KAY

Demand Everyone Once Reach Threshold
Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower.
ALAN KAY

Artificial Feel Inferior Intelligence Some People Worry
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
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
ALAN KAY

Disastrous Ever First Language Learn Most Program Thing
Because the web has produced so much uninformed criticism. It’s kind of a Gresham’s Law-bad money drives the good money out of circulation.
ALAN KAY

Circulation Good Kind Money Out Produce Uniform
I made up the term “object-oriented,” and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.
ALAN KAY

Language Made Mind Object Orient Tell Term

A computer scientist is a machine for converting coffee into urine.

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A computer scientist is a machine for converting coffee into urine.

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