Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today • Hacker News Board

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#51

Post by alankay1 » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

vainguard wrote: post #17

How important is finding the right language?

For big problems, "finding the problem" is paramount -- this will often suggest representation systems that will help think and do better. A language that allows you to quickly make and refine your sense of the context and discourse -- i.e. to make languages as you need using tools that will automatically provide development environments, etc. and allow practical exploration and progress.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#52

Post by xt00 » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

Hi Alan, do you think privacy on the web should be guaranteed by design or malleable such that in special cases the government can look up your google searches and see if you follow terrorists on twitter? When I say guaranteed by design, I mean should people be creating a system to obfuscate, encrypt, and highly confuse the ability of people who wish to track/deduce what people are doing on the web?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#53

Post by mej10 » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

What is your recommendation to someone wanting to get into the kind of research you do?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#54

Post by noobermin » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

msutherl wrote: post #32

alankay1 wrote: post #12

-- I was surprised that the HN list page didn't automatically refresh in my browser (seems as though it should be live and not have to be prompted ...)

Au contraire, I'm happy that the last-seen-state is preserved and I'm given the option to refresh to see the current state should I chose to.

It certainly helps when reading long replies, that's for sure. I do think a mini-update box with "click here to load" like on stackoverflow for replies or edits would be an interesting idea.

Of course, the 90's style is pretty hacker-hipster as well...can't deny that.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#55

Post by duncanawoods » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

Hi Alan,

Whats the next step to improve remote working? Face to face still seems to be so superior for relationship building and problem solving despite the wealth of video conferencing, social and collaboration tools we have. I don't want to wear goggles...

thanks!

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#56

Post by collint » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

Hello Alan,

I'm curious if you've read much about Activity Theory. (in particular, Yrjö Engeström's Learning by Expanding.) I feel like it's compatible with much of what I've heard you discuss in lectures. Is it something you have an opinion on?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#57

Post by buzzkills » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

In terms of real, in use, user interfaces, what do you think are the best examples? What do you like about them?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#58

Post by walterbell » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

Do you see further research paths for metacompilers [1] to reduce code and enable customizable user interfaces?

With containers and hypervisors now in desktop OSes (Windows, Mac OS, Linux), could an open-source research OS (e.g. KSWorld) be packaged for developers and end-users who want to test your team's experimental UIs?

Is there long-term value in "private machine learning" where some data and algos are focused on user/owner interests, with "public machine learning" providing variably-trusted signals to user-owned algos for intelligence augmentation?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8297996

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#59

Post by unimpressive » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

Hi Alan,

One of the concepts I've heard you talk about before in interviews and the like is simulation. I think simulation is huge and we should be seeing products that cater towards it, but largely aren't.

http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=5

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/08/links-1214-come-ye-to-b...

Do you still think simulation is an important promise of the computer revolution, and are there any products you know of or ideas you have that are/would be a step in the right direction?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#60

Post by miguelrochefort » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

Do you believe that the gap between consuming software and creating software will disappear at some point? That is, do you expect we will soon see some homoiconic software environment where the interface for using software is the same as the interface for creating it?

I feel like the current application paradigm cannot scale, and will only lead to further fragmentation. We all have 100+ different accounts, and 100+ different apps, none of which can interact with each other. Most people seem to think that AI will solve this, and make natural languages the main interface to AI, but I don't buy it. Speech seem so antiquated in comparison to what can be achieved through other senses (including sight and touch). How do you imagine humans will interact with future computer systems?