Alan Kay's reading list • Hacker News Board

Re: Alan Kay's reading list

#31

Post by jeffdavis » Tue, May 31, 2016, 4:45 AM UTC

madebylaw wrote: post #29

madebylaw wrote: post #28

I love Kay and you should absolutely read any of his recommendations or at least examine them with earnest. That said, I struggle to remember anything he's created or written that's moved the needle (my needle). I'm honestly not hating and I have way too much respect for him to say anything on this list is not worthwhile. But, in my experience, Kay has been one of those brilliant uncles who's (written) work never see…

Ouch, why did I say anything. Feel like a hater :-/

It might have been better phrased as a question. What do you mean by "still relevant to computer science"?

EDIT: from a brief read of his wikipedia page:

"Kay has lectured extensively on the idea that the computer revolution is very new, and all of the good ideas have not been universally implemented."

Coming from someone with multiple major accomplishments (OOP pioneer, smalltalk, overlapping window GUI, etc.), that's a powerful message that can still be applied today.

Re: Alan Kay's reading list

#32

Post by dang » Tue, May 31, 2016, 4:50 AM UTC

V-2 wrote: post #10

dang wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal attacks aren't allowed here. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11803404 and marked it off-topic.

[nevermind, I misread]

As other users have pointed out, that was the fault of a usability problem at our end. It was hard to tell that a comment was replying to a flagged comment. Sorry for the confusion!

This has been on our list to fix since https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10917057 so I went ahead and fixed it (or tried to). Now, in addition to "[flagged]", "[dead]", or "[deleted]", you'll see the usual item line with at least a timestamp. Hopefully this will make it clear that there used to be a full comment there, to which there is a surviving reply.

Re: Alan Kay's reading list

#33

Post by zcmncbv » Tue, May 31, 2016, 5:19 AM UTC

Great list but I'm surprized about the De Bono books. Edward De Bono is a great story-teller, but there's little science in his work and while he describes many instances of creative thought, he never shows the underlying mechanisms with any rigor.

Re: Alan Kay's reading list

#34

Post by pjmlp » Tue, May 31, 2016, 5:42 AM UTC

madebylaw wrote: post #28

I love Kay and you should absolutely read any of his recommendations or at least examine them with earnest. That said, I struggle to remember anything he's created or written that's moved the needle (my needle). I'm honestly not hating and I have way too much respect for him to say anything on this list is not worthwhile. But, in my experience, Kay has been one of those brilliant uncles who's (written) work never see…

Yes, because we are yet to achieve a mainstream way of doing computing the way he and his peers have envisioned.

Although my IDEs are quite powerful, they are yet far from the Xerox PARC workstations experience used to feel like.

My tablet, even a Surface, aren't as easy to use or programmable in the same way as the Dynabooks were envisioned.

So yes, he is still relevant, because mainstream computing is still catching up to his vision.

Re: Alan Kay's reading list

#35

Post by paloaltokid » Tue, May 31, 2016, 6:10 AM UTC

Dangeranger wrote: post #27

jph wrote: post #24

Mindstorms by Papert transformed my understanding of how to program, and how to teach programming. The book discusses how children acquire mental models of computers and logical processes. And it turns out that the book is growing even more relevant with the rapid growth of Lego Mindstorms -- which is a direct result Papert's projects and related MIT Media Lab projects. What is most exciting, to me, is the direct lin…

Mindstorms is truly a transformational text. It's very sad that Papert's brain injury sustained in Hanoi resulted in him needing to use some of the same techniques that he developed in the text to aid in his personal rehabilitation and recovery.

I don't think it's necessarily a sad thing. It's of course a sad event for anyone to sustain a brain injury. But if he used his own techniques and they provably lead to recovery, it should be a moment of joy and triumph. His work was not wasted and he helped himself - what could be better than that?

Re: Alan Kay's reading list

#36

Post by chroth » Tue, May 31, 2016, 6:16 AM UTC

It's a good list, but might just be a bit too androcentric with only 5 women out of the ~90 persons listed, (including anthologies.) Counting: Hannah Arendt, Maria Montessori, Mary Midgley, Sylvia Scribner and Rebecca West.

Re: Alan Kay's reading list

#37

Post by abritinthebay » Tue, May 31, 2016, 6:25 AM UTC

madebylaw wrote: post #28

I love Kay and you should absolutely read any of his recommendations or at least examine them with earnest. That said, I struggle to remember anything he's created or written that's moved the needle (my needle). I'm honestly not hating and I have way too much respect for him to say anything on this list is not worthwhile. But, in my experience, Kay has been one of those brilliant uncles who's (written) work never see…

> I struggle to remember anything he's created or written that's moved the needle

Well he helped created the first computer networked workstations, practically invented Object Oriented Programming, created the concepts of overlapping window management...

... I struggle to think of what needle your trying to move that wouldn't be moved by any of those.

Re: Alan Kay's reading list

#38

Post by olavk » Tue, May 31, 2016, 6:32 AM UTC

andrewbinstock wrote: post #30

awt wrote: post #6

I'm disappointed not to see Aristotle. On the other hand not totally surprised, either.

Kay is a huge admirer of Socrates. When I interviewed Kay in 2012, he even managed to bring Socrates into the conversation and then discourse on his worthiness in the context of various religions[1]: "You can't go to heaven unless you're baptized. If anyone deserves to go to heaven, it's Socrates, so this is a huge problem." While the link below goes to the page mentioning Socrates, I highly recommend the entire inte…

Dante has a solution for this: There is a place in the upper section of hell with no punishment or torment, reserved for "just heathens" like Socrates. So technically he did not go to heaven since he is denied the closeness to God, but arguably this is an even nicer afterlife, since he can continue thinking and questioning things together with other great minds.

Re: Alan Kay's reading list

#39

Post by unusximmortalis » Tue, May 31, 2016, 6:34 AM UTC

signa11 wrote: post #26

unimpressive wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you plan to get old, invest in fundamentals. They'll be with you long after any specific implementation is dead and buried.

> If you plan to get old, invest in fundamentals. by that account, shouldn't we all be learning mathematics ?

Math, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, ethics and algorithms.

Re: Alan Kay's reading list

#40

Post by unusximmortalis » Tue, May 31, 2016, 6:36 AM UTC

chroth wrote: post #36

It's a good list, but might just be a bit too androcentric with only 5 women out of the ~90 persons listed, (including anthologies.) Counting: Hannah Arendt, Maria Montessori, Mary Midgley, Sylvia Scribner and Rebecca West.

Can you pls explain the downvote when you do it please?