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Science requires a society because even people who are trying to be good thinkers love their own thoughts and theories - much of the debugging has to be done by others.

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
People
Science
Debugging
Others
Thinkers
Done
Theories
Even
Thinker
Trying
Requires
Much
Thoughts
Good
Theory
Love
Society

More quotes by Alan Kay

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[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
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I fear - as far as I can tell - that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training.
Alan Kay
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Humans are communications junkies. We just can't get enough.
Alan Kay
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Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.
Alan Kay
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Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple his world.
Alan Kay
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Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
Alan Kay
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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
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I hired finishers because I'm a good starter and a poor finisher.
Alan Kay
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It's easier to invent the future than to predict it.
Alan Kay
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I fear - as far as I can tell - that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training. I've heard complaints from even mighty Stanford University with its illustrious faculty that basically the undergraduate computer science program is little more than Java certification.
Alan Kay
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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
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A computer scientist is a machine for converting coffee into urine.
Alan Kay
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Quite a few people have to believe something is normal before it becomes normal - a sort of 'voting' situation. But once the threshold is reached, then everyone demands to do whatever it is.
Alan Kay
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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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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
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Possibly the only real object-oriented system in working order. (About Internet)
Alan Kay
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Lisp isn't a language, it's a building material.
Alan Kay
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Any company large enough to have a research lab is too large to listen to it.
Alan Kay
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I made up the term object-oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.
Alan Kay
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Technology is anything invented after you were born, everything else is just stuff.
Alan Kay