Alan Kay Quotes

There will be always unresolved ambiguity here.
ALAN KAY

Always Ambiguity
In success there’s a tendency to keep on doing what you were doing.
ALAN KAY

Do Doing Kept Success Tendency
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
The computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas.
ALAN KAY

Computer Idea Instrument Music Simply
Any company large enough to have a research lab is too large to listen to it.
ALAN KAY

Company Enough Large Listen Research Too
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.
ALAN KAY

Hardware Old People Really Serious Software
It’s easier to invent the future than to predict it.
ALAN KAY

Easier Future Invent Predict
We cannot predict the future, but we can invent it.
ALAN KAY

Future Invent IT Predict
There’s an element of surprise, and especially in science, there is often laughter that goes along with the “Aha.”
ALAN KAY

Along Element Especial Go Laughter Often Science Surprise
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
ALAN KAY

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

Change Easy Except Part
Humans are communications junkies. We just can’t get enough.
ALAN KAY

Communication Enough Get Human Junkie
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 idea that hardware on networks should just be caches for movable process descriptions and the processes themselves goes back quite a ways.
ALAN KAY

Back Catch Description Hardware Idea Movable Network Process Quiet
The perfume part is important because it will help find the knowledge again to help get to the destinations the inner urges pick.
ALAN KAY

Destination Help Important Knowledge Perfume Pick Urge
School is basically about one point of view – the one the teacher has or the textbooks have.
ALAN KAY

Basically One Point School Teacher Textbook View
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
ALAN KAY

Disastrous Ever First Language Learn Most Program Thing
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
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
By the time I got to school, I had already read a couple hundred books.
ALAN KAY

Book Couple Got Hundred School Time
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
Yazılım konusunda iddialı insanlar kendi donanımlarını yapmalılar.
ALAN KAY

Country Donanimlarini People Person
Lisp isn’t a language, it’s a building material.
ALAN KAY

Buil Language Lips Material
So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world.
ALAN KAY

Eight End Five Inch iPhone Presentation ule World
As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way.
ALAN KAY

All Art Material Must Romance Way Well
I don’t know how many of you have ever met Dijkstra, but you probably know that arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras.
ALAN KAY

Arrogance Computer Ever Know Many Measure Met Nanao People Science

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