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Quite a few people have to believe something is normal before it becomes normal – a sort of ‘voting’ situation.

Alan Kay

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
There’s a real sense in which MS and Apple never understood networking or operating systems (or what objects really are).
ALAN KAY

Apple Microsoft Network Object Operate System Real Sense Understood
Change is easy, except for the changed part.
ALAN KAY

Change Easy Except Part
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
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
It’s easier to invent the future than to predict it.
ALAN KAY

Easier Future Invent Predict
Most creativity is a transition from one context into another where things are more surprising.
ALAN KAY

Another Context Creativity Most Mst Surprise Thing Transition
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
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
The greatest single programming language ever designed
ALAN KAY

Design Great Language Program Singer
The biggest problem we have as human beings is that we confuse our beliefs with reality.
ALAN KAY

Being Belief Bigots Confide Human Problem Reality
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
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
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
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
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

Quite a few people have to believe something is normal before it becomes normal – a sort of ‘voting’ situation.

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Quite a few people have to believe something is normal before it becomes normal – a sort of ‘voting’ situation.

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Popular Authors

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