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To get the medium’s magic to work for one’s aims rather than against them is to attain literacy.

Alan Kay

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
In our society we have hard nerds and soft nerds.
ALAN KAY

Hard Nerd Society Soft
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
A new friend is new wine, when it grows old, you will enjoy drinking it.
ALAN KAY

Drink Enjoy Friend Grow New Now Old Wine
It’s easier to invent the future than to predict it.
ALAN KAY

Easier Future Invent Predict
Change is easy, except for the changed part.
ALAN KAY

Change Easy Except Part
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
Lisp isn’t a language, it’s a building material.
ALAN KAY

Buil Language Lips Material
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
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
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 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
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 hard nerds are the ones who used to have the slide rules at their belt; now they have calculators.
ALAN KAY

Belt Calculator Hard Nerd One Rule Slide Use
Much of the debugging has to be done by others.
ALAN KAY

Debugging Done Much Other
As far as Apple goes, it was a different company every few years from the time I joined in 1984.
ALAN KAY

Apple As Company Different Every Few Go Join

To get the medium’s magic to work for one’s aims rather than against them is to attain literacy.

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To get the medium’s magic to work for one’s aims rather than against them is to attain literacy.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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