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

Alan Kay

Technology is anything invented after you were born, everything else is just stuff.
ALAN KAY

After Anything Born Invent Technology
Bad User on Device is a medium that can dynamically simulate the details of any other medium, including media that cannot exist physically.
ALAN KAY

Any Bad Detail Device Dynamical Medium Other Simulate User
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 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
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 Far Jar Java Program Tell Undergraduate Vocational
If you’re utopian, you’re never satisfied.
ALAN KAY

Country never Utopian
The greatest single programming language ever designed
ALAN KAY

Design Great Language Program Singer
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
That language was Joss, which predated Basic and was beautiful.
ALAN KAY

Basic Beautiful Joss Language Predate
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
Change is easy, except for the changed part.
ALAN KAY

Change Easy Except Part
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
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
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
In our society we have hard nerds and soft nerds.
ALAN KAY

Hard Nerd Society Soft
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

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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