Hi Alan,
What is your view on Literate Programming and why it hasn't taken off (yet)?
Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
341–350 of 931 posts
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#342Alan, Computers have been a part of education in the United States for several decades, but you've argued that technology isn't used to its full potential. 1. Why has technology in schools failed to make an impact? 2. How would you design a curriculum for your children that uses technology effectively today?
I've written and talked a lot on these subjects, so let me suggest you look at the Viewpoints website, YouTube, there's a TED talk, etc.
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#343Do you believe everyone should be thought, or exposed to, programming in school? I'm afraid that universal inclusion of programming in the curriculum would have an opposite effect and make the next generation despise programming, in the same way some people feel about math today.
Everyone should get fluent in "real science" and many other things come along very nicely with this -- including the kinds of programming that will really help most people.
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#344Hi Alan, You've been a long-time proponent for creating educational software (e.g squeak etoys) helping teach kids how to program and have been fairly critical of the iPad in the past. What are your thoughts on Apple's new iPad Swift playground ( http://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/ ) in teaching kids how to learn how to program in Swift? Do you think UI aesthetics are important in software for kids?
"Criticizing reasonably" takes much longer than praise -- and my reactions to this question are "critical"
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#345How do you seek out the people you choose to work with, now or in the past? Is it an active process, or do you find interesting people naturally glom around a nucleus of interesting work?
Interesting people, even as students, leave trails in various ways
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#346Hi Alan, I have read a lot about you and your work at Xerox. Do you enjoy travel? What continents have you been to? What's your favorite country outside the US? How many hours a day did you sleep per day during your most productive research years? Cos i usually wonder how very productive people seem to achieve much more than others within the same 24 hours we all have. Greetings form Lagos Nigeria.
I used to sleep about 5 hours a night well into my 50s, but then started to get respiratory infections, especially brought on by plane travel. After many years, my sleep habits were examined and I was told to get at least 8 or more hours a night. This is hard, so I usually make up with an afternoon map. This has cured the infections but has cut down the number of active hours each day.
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#347hi Alan! Q: I've always been a big fan both of text console accessible UI's like CLI's and REPL's as well as of GUI's. In my mind they each clearly have a different mix of strengths and weaknesses. One way a user might have a bit of the "best of both worlds" potentially is an app or client featuring a hybrid input design where all 3 of these modes are available for the user to drive. Any thoughts on that? I'm writing…
Smalltalk and some other languages have all three -- easy to do if the system is a "certain way".
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#348Hi Alan, 1. Do you think the area of HCI is stagnating today? 2. What are your thoughts on programming languages that encapsulate Machine Learning within language constructs and/or generally take the recent advancements in NLP and AI and integrate them as a way to augment the programmer?
1. Yes for the most part. The exceptions are also interesting.
2. Haven't seen anything above threshold yet
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
#349Alan, You have inspired me deeply, thank you. I love working with man's greatest invention, but I have a deep sense of dread. HN is very good about projecting a fantasy about the future, that technology can solve all problems. I would love to see a world where people use computers to compute. However, global warming is a real threat and my biggest fear is that our pop-culture will prevent us from solving our problems…
There are some good old sci-fi stories about your last question.
People in my process are optimists. People in my position who spend a lot of time trying to improve education are realists.
Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
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