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The protean nature of the computer is such that it can act like a machine or like a language to be shaped and exploited.
Alan Kay
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Alan Kay
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: May 17
Computer Scientist
Jazz Guitarist
Jazz Musician
Programmer
University Teacher
Springfield
Massachusetts
Alan Curtis Kay
Alan C. Kay
Machines
Computer
Technology
Language
Nature
Like
Exploited
Shaped
Machine
More quotes by 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
The tree of research must be fed from time to time with the blood of bean-counters, for it is its natural manure.
Alan Kay
I fear - as far as I can tell - that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training.
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
Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple his world.
Alan Kay
The greatest single programming language ever designed
Alan Kay
A computer scientist is a machine for converting coffee into urine.
Alan Kay
In our society we have hard nerds and soft nerds. The hard nerds are the ones who used to have the slide rules at their belt now they have calculators. The soft nerds are the ones who get violently ill whenever anybody mentions an integral sign.
Alan Kay
School is basically about one point of view - the one the teacher has or the textbooks have. They don't like the idea of having different points of view.
Alan Kay
Change is easy, except for the changed part.
Alan Kay
[Computing] is just a fabulous place for that, because it's a place where you don't have to be a Ph.D. or anything else. It's a place where you can still be an artisan. People are willing to pay you if you're any good at all, and you have plenty of time for screwing around.
Alan Kay
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
Alan Kay
I had the fortune or misfortune to learn how to read fluently starting at the age of three. So I had read maybe 150 books by the time I hit 1st grade. And I already knew that the teachers were lying to me.
Alan Kay
There is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves. This tends to result in very dumbed-down products that are easy to get started on, but are generally worthless and/or debilitating.
Alan Kay
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Alan Kay
Lisp isn't a language, it's a building material.
Alan Kay
Understanding- -like civilization, happiness, music, science and a host of other great endeavors--is not a state of being, but a manner of traveling. This great road has no final destination. The journey itself is the reward.
Alan Kay
Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
Alan Kay
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.
Alan Kay
The computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas.
Alan Kay
