Do you still see an advantage of using Smalltalk (like Squeak/Pharo) as a general purpose language/tool to build software or do you think that most of its original ideas were somehow "taken" by other alternatives?
Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
61–70 of 931 posts
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#62Do you recall any interesting work on discussion forums or alternatives to them for promoting collaborative thinking?
Or for another approach, how do you like HN?
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#63A piece of advice for software engineers on the mid of the careers ? How do you find challenges and leverage their experience ?
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#64Hi Alan,
1. what do you think about the hardware we are using as foundation of computing today? I remember you mentioning about how cool was the architecture of the Burroughs B5000 [1] being prepared to run on the metal the higher level programming languages. What do hardware vendors should do to make hardware that is more friendly to higher level programming? Would that help us to be less depending on VM's while still enjoying silicon kind of performance?
2. What software technologies do you feel we're missing?
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#65What do you think of statement "Erlang is the only true object oriented language in use today."?
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#66Hi Alan,
In "The Power of the Context" (2004) you wrote:
...In programming there is a wide-spread 1st order
theory that one shouldn’t build one’s own tools,
languages, and especially operating systems. This is
true—an incredible amount of time and energy has gone
down these ratholes. On the 2nd hand, if you can build
your own tools, languages and operating systems, then
you absolutely should because the leverage that can be
obtained (and often the time not wasted in trying to
fix other people’s not quite right tools) can be
incredible.
However, more often than not, I find the sentiment paralyzing. There's so much that one could probably learn to build themselves, but as things become more and more complex, one has to be able to make a rational tradeoff between spending the time and energy in the rathole, or not. I can't spend all day rebuilding everything I can simply because I can.
My question is: how does one decide when to DIY, and when to use what's already been built?
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#67Hi Sir Kay,
How do you feel about the role of computing technology in society today ? is it still important or should be work on other domains (education, medicine, ecology, and the industrial tissue that is our interface to reality nowadays).
While I'm at it, just did a MOOC about Pharo (~ex squeak) and ST was indeed a very interesting take on OO (if I may say so ;). So thanks for you and your teammates work along the years (from ST to STEPS).
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#68How do you become a lifelong learner ? How do you stay excited about the future ?
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#69When you were envisioning today's computers in the 70s you seemed to have been focused mostly on the educational benefits but it turns out that these devices are even better for entertainment to the point were they are dangerously addictive and steal time away from education. Do you have any thoughts on interfaces that guide the brain away from its worst impulses and towards more productive uses?
We were mostly thinking of "human advancement" or as Engelbart's group termed it "Human Augmentation" -- this includes education along with lots of other things. I remember noting that if Moore's Law were to go a decade beyond 1995 (Moore's original extrapolation) that things like television and other "legal drugs" would be possible. We already had a very good sense of this before TV things were possible from noting how attractive early video games -- like SpaceWar -- were. This is a part of an industrial civilization being able to produce surpluses (the "industrial" part) with the "civilization" part being how well children can be helped to learn not to give into the cravings of genetics in a world of over-plenty. This is a huge problem in a culture like the US in which making money is rather separated from worrying about how the money is made.
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#70Is a web browser sufficient to provide rich and meaningful experiences on the Internet?