Alan Kay Quotes, Iphone Quotes, Eight Quotes

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. 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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Iphone Quotes , Eight Quotes

Java and C++ make you think that the new ideas are like the old ones. Java is the most distressing thing to hit computing since MS-DOS.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Ideas Quotes

A new friend is new wine, when it grows old, you will enjoy drinking it.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Drinking Quotes , Wine Quotes

I fear - as far as I can tell - that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Training Quotes , Degrees Quotes

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

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Simple Quotes , Simplicity Quotes

Technology is anything invented after you were born, everything else is just stuff.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Technology Quotes , Stuff Quotes

Humans are communications junkies. We just can't get enough.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Communication Quotes , Humanity Quotes

Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Worry Quotes , Investing Quotes

Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable. As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. 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?

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Art Quotes , Reading Quotes

Any company large enough to have a research lab is too large to listen to it.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Research Quotes , Labs Quotes

If you're utopian, you're never satisfied.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Satisfied Quotes , Utopian Quotes

Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Funny Inspirational Quotes , Integrity Quotes

The greatest single programming language ever designed

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Language Quotes , Programming Quotes

We cannot predict the future, but we can invent it.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes

The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Firsts Quotes , Language Quotes

The only way you can predict the future is to build it.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes

Basic would never have surfaced because there was always a language better than Basic for that purpose. That language was Joss, which predated Basic and was beautiful. But Basic happened to be on a GE timesharing system that was done by Dartmouth, and when GE decided to franchise that, it started spreading Basic around just because it was there, not because it had any intrinsic merits whatsoever.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Merit Quotes

Lisp isn't a language, it's a building material.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Language Quotes , Building Quotes

When I first prepared this particular talk... 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. And I realized that informed criticism has completely been done in by the web. 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. Bad criticism drives good criticism out of circulation. You just can't criticize anything.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Hate Quotes , Law Quotes

Having an intelligent secretary does not get rid of the need to read, write, and draw, etc. In a well functioning world, tools and agents are complementary.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Kay Quotes , Writing Quotes , Intelligent Quotes