black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Alan Kay

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
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
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
Technology is anything that wasn’t around when you were born.
ALAN KAY

Anything Around Born Technology
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
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
The greatest single programming language ever designed
ALAN KAY

Design Great Language Program Singer
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
The computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas.
ALAN KAY

Computer Idea Instrument Music Simply
If we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing a part of our lives?
ALAN KAY

Growth Learn Letter Makem Live Personal Societal Spent Springboard Value
This is not secret knowledge. It’s just secret to this pop culture.
ALAN KAY

Culture Knowledge Pop Secret
The soft nerds are the ones who get violently ill whenever anybody mentions an integral sign.
ALAN KAY

Anybody Integral Mention Nerd One Sign Soft Violent
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
Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
ALAN KAY

Eighty Perspective Point Worth
In our society we have hard nerds and soft nerds.
ALAN KAY

Hard Nerd Society Soft
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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Kay Quotes