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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

#351

Post by syngrog66 »

alankay1 wrote: post #347
syngrog66 wrote: post #292

hi 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".

thanks! do you mean if the underlying architecture design makes it easier?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#352

Post by agumonkey »

alankay1 wrote: post #322
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.

Would it be better on a ML ? I remember long topics on FONC.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#353

Post by alankay1 »

gnaritas wrote: post #321
alankay1 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you are not blind then you can see pictures. So this would be interesting to follow up ...

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#354

Post by _ayv0 »

alankay1 wrote: post #313
_ayv0 wrote: post #14

Hi Alan, I have three questions - 1. If you were to design a new programming paradigm today using what we have learnt about OOP what would it be? 2. With VR and AR (Hololens) becoming a reality (heh) how do you see user interfaces changing to work better with these systems? What new things need to be invented or rethought? 3. I also worked at Xerox for a number of years although not at PARC. I was always frustrated b…

Let me both acknowledge your questions, and also acknowledge that this forum (the media authoring tools) are not in scale with the needed answers ...

Perhaps a reddit AMA would be better? They have much more flexible/powerful comment system.

Edit: Not sure why I am getting down voted for making a suggestion. Oh well.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#355

Post by alankay1 »

adamgravitis wrote: post #137

Hi Alan, I've heard you frequently compare the OOP paradigm to microbiology and molecules. It seems like even Smalltalk-like object interactions are very different from, say, protein-protein interactions. How do you think this current paradigm of message-sending could be improved upon to enable more powerful, perhaps protein-like composition?

Not proteins, but cell to cell (this is still an interesting mechanism to contemplate and develop ...

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#356

Post by dang »

alankay1 wrote: post #339
iyn wrote: post #16

Thanks for doing this AMA. Q: How do you think we can improve todays world (not just with technology)? What do you think is our species way forward? How as a civilization can we 'get to higher level'? Specifically, I'm interested in your views on ending poverty, suffering, not destroying the Earth, improving our political and social systems, improving education etc. I understand that these are very broad topics witho…

"What Fools these Mortals be!" Puck meant that we are easy to fool. In fact we like to be fooled -- we pay lots of money to be fooled! One way to look at this is that the most important learning anyone can do is to understand "Human beings as if from Mars" -- meaning to get beyond our fooling ourselves and to start trying to deal with what is dangerous and counterproductive in our genetic (and hence cultural) makeups…

> the great Jerome Bruner in the 60s came up with a terrific curriculum for 5th graders that was an excellent start for "real anthroplogy"

Was that the MACOS program?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man:_A_Course_of_Study

I was casting around recently looking for something to post to HN about it, but there's surprisingly little on the web. (I haven't yet watched the National Film Board documentary on it, which was the only substantive source I could find.)

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#358

Post by alankay1 »

mej10 wrote: post #53

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

"No one owes more to his research community than I do"

I lucked into the ARPA community 50 years ago (without even knowing that it existed).

A good start is to find people and places that are doing things you think are interesting ...

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#360

Post by discreteevent »

alankay wrote: post #242
discreteevent wrote: post #172

Hi Alan, A lot of the VPRI work involved inventing new languages (DSLs). The results were extremely impressive but there were some extremely impressive people inventing the languages. Do you think this is a practical approach for everyday programmers? You have also recommended before that there should be clear separation between meta model and model. Should there be something similar to discipline a codebase where pe…

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?

Thanks. I've been thinking about your questions. I might be misreading you but I think that the answer is probably yes to both. So we should try to get out of the middle ages by inventing new theories and criticising and testing them like physics. But maybe just the physicists should do that. In the meantime the engineers should focus on being able to communicate clearly with the best tools that are currently available.(part of which is restricting their desire to invent)
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