Quote

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

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
Invented
Technology
Born
Stuff
Else
Anything
Everything

More quotes by Alan Kay

Image
It's easier to invent the future than to predict it.
Alan Kay
Image
Change is easy, except for the changed part.
Alan Kay
Image
I made up the term object-oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.
Alan Kay
Image
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
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
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
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Alan Kay
Image
The biggest problem we have as human beings is that we confuse our beliefs with reality.
Alan Kay
Image
An important technology first creates a problem and then solves it.
Alan Kay
Image
Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower.
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
The only way you can predict the future is to build it.
Alan Kay
Image
I fear - as far as I can tell - that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training.
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
Lisp isn't a language, it's a building material.
Alan Kay
Image
Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple his world.
Alan Kay
Image
Humans are communications junkies. We just can't get enough.
Alan Kay
Image
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
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
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