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Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#321

Post by gnaritas »

alankay1 wrote: post #277
gnaritas wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's coming up with ideas: learn to dream while you are awake, the ideas are there. Any advice on how to do that, especially for those of us who are completely non-visual thinkers (aphantasia)?

Dreaming can work without images. What are your sleeping dreams like?

Apparently aphantasia doesn't appear to affect dreams (from research I've read), when sleeping I do have visual dreams, but awake, nothing but black even with eyes closed no matter how hard I try to imagine a picture.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#322

Post by alankay1 »

ducklord wrote: post #121

Hey Alan, you once said that lisp is the greatest single programming language ever designed. Recently, with all the emergence of statically typed languages like Haskell and Scala, has that changed? Why do you think after being around for so long, lisp isn't as popular as mainstream languages like Java, C or Python? And lastly, what are your thoughts on MIT's switch to use Python instead of Scheme to teach their under…

I should clarify this. I didn't exactly mean as a language to program in, but as (a) a "building material" and (b) especially as an "artifact to think with". Once you grok it, most issues in programming languages (including today) are much more thinkable (and criticizable).

The second question requires too long an answer for this forum.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#323

Post by snowwrestler »

alankay1 wrote: post #245
snowwrestler wrote: post #160

I recall reading an article about 10 years ago describing a PARC research project in which networked computers with antennae were placed throughout a set of rooms, and the subject carried a small transmitter with them from room to room. As the computer in each room detected the transmitter, it triggered actions in each room. I think it was called "ambient computing." Does this ring a bell for you? I have searched for…

Yes, this idea was originally Nicholas Negroponte's in the 70s. The Parc version was called "Ubiquitous Computing" and was led by Mark Wieser in the 80s ...

Thanks! This research was my first thought when I saw big companies starting to come out with things like smart watches, hyper-local beacons, and home automation products.

But strangely, it seems like companies are still treating those all as separate lines. For example, Apple markets their home and watch projects totally independently of one another. But I have to think that they are working toward ubiquitous computing, much as they worked toward the Dynabook over the decades.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#324

Post by alankay1 »

Natanael_L wrote: post #250
alankay wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tricky question. One answer would be to ask whether there is an intrinsic difference between "computer science" and (say) physics? Or are the differences just that computing is where science was in the Middle Ages?

Computer science is defined by information theory, and we already have mathematical proofs binding together information theory with the laws of quantum physics (such as the example of the minimum energy needed to erase one bit of entropy from memory, something which is bounded by the ambient temperature).

Respectfully ... I think you missed the point of my answer.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#325

Post by poppingtonic »

alankay wrote: post #310
poppingtonic wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Spaced repetition can make the recalling - and thus the thinking and pondering - easier. It can certainly make one more consilient, given the right choice of "other things to study" e.g. biology or social psychology, as you've mentioned in an earlier comment. 2. It takes quite a bit of training for a reader to detect bias in their own cognition, particularly the "cognition" that happens when they're reading someon…

I think that the "training" of "System 1" is a key factor in allowing "System 2" to be powerful. This is beyond the scope of this AMA (or at least beyond my scope to try to put together a decent comment on this today).

There's a recursive sense in which "training" "System 1" involves assimilating more abstractions, through practice and spaced repetition, such as deferring to the equations of motion when thinking about what happens when one throws a ball in the air. Going as far as providing useful interfaces to otherwise difficult cognitive terrain (a la Mathematica) is still part of this subproject. The process of assimilating new abstractions well enough that they become part of one's intuition (even noisily) is a function of time and intense focus. What do you see as a way to aggregate the knowledge complex and teach further generations of humans what the EEA couldn't, fast enough that they can solve the environmental challenges ahead? What's HARC's goal for going about this?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#326

Post by alankay »

gnocchi wrote: post #225

Hi Alan, I'm part of a generation who didn't grew up with the PDP but had LOGO and basic available in computers and calculators. With the Amstrad CPC it was possible to interupt a program and to change a few lines of code to make it do something else which was a great way to keep interested. And with calculator it was possible to code formulas to resolve/check problems. But how would you teach programming today to a…

It's time to do another children's language. My answer a few years ago would have been "in part: Etoys", "in lesser part: Scratch (done by some of the same people but too much of a subset)".

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#327

Post by Natanael_L »

alankay1 wrote: post #274
Natanael_L wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that's geofencing, smart homes, etc... Apps like Tasker on Android can do some of it.

You are thinking of something else ...

This is only version accessible to most people today. Where the contextually driven actions are performed by your smartphone, not by the swarm of devices in your vicinity.

A few devices issuing orders, and a bunch of dumb devices taking orders.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#329

Post by discreteevent »

alankay1 wrote: post #162
psibi wrote: post #40

What do you think about functional languages like Haskell, OCaml etc ?

They need a much better idea of time (such as approaches to McCarthy's fluents). And then there is the issue that we need to make "systems" ... I like what a function is, and this idea should be used, but I think it is better used rather differently ...

You may have come across it already but you might be interested in "Time Reborn" by Lee Smolin. His opinion is that mathematics is a fine tool but it has lead physics to the "block universe" perspective. A reversible universe that is driven by pure immutable laws. He claims that time and spontaneous change are important.

It crossed over with some of my experience of programming. Recently he wrote "The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time" with Roberto Unger, but I haven't read that yet.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#330

Post by Natanael_L »

alankay1 wrote: post #324
Natanael_L wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computer science is defined by information theory, and we already have mathematical proofs binding together information theory with the laws of quantum physics (such as the example of the minimum energy needed to erase one bit of entropy from memory, something which is bounded by the ambient temperature).

Respectfully ... I think you missed the point of my answer.

Did you intend to compare the progress and formalization of the fields? Didn't pick up on that
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