Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Blood
Politics
Counters
Freedom
Bean
Natural
Manure
Science
Beans
Must
Feds
Time
Research
Tree

More quotes by Alan Kay

Image
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.
Alan Kay
Image
Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
Alan Kay
Image
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
Alan Kay
Image
The biggest problem we have as human beings is that we confuse our beliefs with reality.
Alan Kay
Image
In success there's a tendency to keep on doing what you were doing.
Alan Kay
Image
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
Image
The flip side of the coin was that even good programmers and language designers tended to do terrible extensions when they were in the heat of programming, because design is something that is best done slowly and carefully.
Alan Kay
Image
Perl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term.
Alan Kay
Image
[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
Image
If the pros at Sun had had a chance to fix Java, the world would be a much more pleasant place. This is not secret knowledge. It's just secret to this pop culture.
Alan Kay
Image
Humans are communications junkies. We just can't get enough.
Alan Kay
Image
In computers, every 'new explosion' was set off by a software product that allowed users to program differently.
Alan Kay
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If you're not failing 90% of the time, then you're probably not working on sufficiently challenging problems.
Alan Kay
Image
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
Image
I hired finishers because I'm a good starter and a poor finisher.
Alan Kay
Image
It's easier to invent the future than to predict it.
Alan Kay
Image
Yazılım konusunda iddialı insanlar kendi donanımlarını yapmalılar.
Alan Kay