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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.
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
Computer
Bricks
Pyramid
Technology
Slaves
Structural
Millions
Programming
Brute
Force
Software
Hardware
Today
Code
Egyptian
Done
Thousands
Pyramids
Much
Slave
Programmers
Like
Integrity
Brutes
Piled
More quotes by Alan Kay
Lisp isn't a language, it's a building material.
Alan Kay
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.
Alan Kay
An important technology first creates a problem and then solves it.
Alan Kay
I hired finishers because I'm a good starter and a poor finisher.
Alan Kay
Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.
Alan Kay
The future is not laid out on a track. It is something that we can decide, and to the extent that we do not violate any known laws of the universe, we can probably make it work the way that we want to.
Alan Kay
The result is - document destruction - we're really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we're going to come to. There will be always unresolved ambiguity here.
Alan Kay
It's easier to invent the future than to predict it.
Alan Kay
The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.
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
Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Alan Kay
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
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Alan Kay
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”. 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
Perl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term.
Alan Kay
Every technology really needs to be shipped with a special manual - not how to use it but why, when, and for what.
Alan Kay
The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution hasn't started yet.
Alan Kay
If you're not failing 90% of the time, then you're probably not working on sufficiently challenging problems.
Alan Kay
Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple his world.
Alan Kay
In success there's a tendency to keep on doing what you were doing.
Alan Kay
