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

Alan Kay

A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. Perspective is worth 80 IQ points. Point of view is worth 80 IQ points
ALAN KAY

Change Eighty Perspective Point Worth
When the Mac first came out, Newsweek asked me what I [thought] of it. I said: Well, it’s the first personal computer worth criticizing.
ALAN KAY

Ask Came Computer Criticizing First Mac Newsweek Out Personal Thought
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
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
Every technology really needs to be shipped with a special manual – not how to use it but why, when, and for what.
ALAN KAY

Every Technology How Manual Need Ship Special Use
In a well functioning world, tools and agents are complementary.
ALAN KAY

Agent Complementary Function World Tool Well
Art 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 KAY

Context Element Job More One Really Remind Think
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
Humans are communications junkies. We just can’t get enough.
ALAN KAY

Communication Enough Get Human Junkie
Lisp isn’t a language, it’s a building material.
ALAN KAY

Buil Language Lips Material
Basic would never have surfaced because there was always a language better than Basic for that purpose.
ALAN KAY

Always Basic Better Language Purpose Surface
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
Any company large enough to have a research lab is too large to listen to it.
ALAN KAY

Company Enough Large Listen Research Too
[Computing] is just a fabulous place for that, because it’s a place where you don’t have to be a Ph.D. or anything else. It’s a place where you can still be an artisan.
ALAN KAY

Anything Artisan Computer Else Fabulous Just Place
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
The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.
ALAN KAY

Amateur Comparison Joke Web

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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