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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

#411

Post by zyxzevn »

Hi Alan, Since you may spend another day answering questions.. a got some more for you :-)

What do you think about the different paradigms in programming?

And what do you think about type theory, etc?

Bonus question: I am trying to develop a new general programming system for children. I was inspired by Smalltalk and ELM.

http://www.reddit.com/r/unseen_programming It is a graphical system that uses function blocks connected with flow-logic. So basically it is functional, but much simpler. The function-blocks form a system, very similar to classes/objects in Smalltalk. What do you think about such a system, or what tips do you have about designing a new language?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#412

Post by rvikmanis »

wdanilo wrote: post #300

Hi Alan! I've got some assumptions regarding the upcoming big paradigm shift (and I believe it will happen sooner than later): 1. focus on data processing rather than imperative way of thinking (esp. functional programming) 2. abstraction over parallelism and distributed systems 3. interactive collaboration between developers 4. development accessible to a much broader audience, especially to domain experts, without…

Sorry for straying, but can I get an invite?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#413

Post by aklemm »

losvedir wrote: post #168

At my office a lot of the non-programmers (marketers, finance people, customer support, etc) write a fair bit of SQL. I've often wondered what it is about SQL that allows them to get over their fear of programming, since they would never drop into ruby or a "real" programming language. Things I've considered: * Graphical programming environment (they run the queries from pgadmin, or Postico, or some app like that) *…

With SQL, you get a complete solution to your problem immediately (the data you want is returned). So, high value return on effort motivates people to learn it.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#414

Post by unexistance »

alankay1 wrote: post #361

Hi Folks Thanks for all your questions, and my apologies to those I didn't answer. I got wiped out from 4:30 of answering (I should have taken some breaks). Now I have to. I will look at more of the questions tomorrow. Very best wishes Alan

Thanks Sir Alan, got a LOT to think about now :D

I'm just glad someone I look up to similarly concerned with human education & augmentation via computer systems

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#415

Post by taneq »

numlocked wrote: post #240
losvedir wrote: post #168

At my office a lot of the non-programmers (marketers, finance people, customer support, etc) write a fair bit of SQL. I've often wondered what it is about SQL that allows them to get over their fear of programming, since they would never drop into ruby or a "real" programming language. Things I've considered: * Graphical programming environment (they run the queries from pgadmin, or Postico, or some app like that) *…

SQL is declarative. Compare: for user in table_users: if user.is_active: return user.first_name; vs: SELECT first_name FROM users_table WHERE is_active It's unfortunate that the order of the clauses in SQL is "wrong" (e.g. you should say FROM, WHERE, SELECT: Define the universe of relevant data, filter it down, select what you care about), but it's still quite easy to wrap your mind around. You are asking the compute…

> Compare that to procedural programming, where you are telling the computer what to do, and even if it does what you say, that may not have been what you actually wanted after all.

Procedural vs. functional phrasing in no way changes the basic fact that if you ask a computer the wrong question it'll give you the wrong result.

"go through the list of all users and add the ones which are active to a new list"

vs.

"the list I want contains all active users from the list of all users"

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#416

Post by Retra »

patrickk wrote: post #254
stcredzero wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Scott Adams said this, and where is it from? The Dilbert guy. It's from: https://amzn.com/1591847745

Here's a quote that leapt off the page at me: Just after college, I took my first airplane trip, destination California, in search of a job. I was seated next to a businessman who was probably in his early 60s. I suppose I looked like an odd duck with my serious demeanor, bad haircut and cheap suit, clearly out of my element. I asked what he did for a living, and he told me he was the CEO of a company that made screw…

It makes no sense at all if you don't view "having the best possible job" as a primary motivator in your life.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#417

Post by [deleted] »

BrutallyHonest wrote: post #305
olantonan wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"who could possibly fake these?" Copying from other sources. I'm not saying it's fake, just curious about verification as someone claimed so. For instance, your "vouch", are you an official HN account. How can I tell?

If an answer could be confused with a "real" one then it's as good.

[deleted]

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#418

Post by Retra »

BrutallyHonest wrote: post #305
olantonan wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"who could possibly fake these?" Copying from other sources. I'm not saying it's fake, just curious about verification as someone claimed so. For instance, your "vouch", are you an official HN account. How can I tell?

If an answer could be confused with a "real" one then it's as good.

This is assuming the real one wouldn't have articulated anything unique and contextually valuable. (Unless you've got some sure-fire method to determine which statements are objectively so and that's what's getting confused.)

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#419

Post by hemisphere »

jfaucett wrote: post #49

Hi Alan, Do you think we'll ever have a programming language that isn't fully text based and gets closer to a direct mapping of our own thoughts than current systems? If so any ideas what properties this language would have?

A few years ago I asked another visionary, Marvin Minsky, if he thought that, in the future, we'd do our programming in something other than plain text. He said, "If it's good enough for Aristotle and Plato, it's good enough for me."

RIP, Professor.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#420

Post by icarito »

DonHopkins wrote: post #380
icarito wrote: post #92

Hello Alan, In light of the poor results of the OLPC project, in reference to the Children's Machine, leaving aside commercial factors, do you think the Sugar user interface is appropriate for the task? If not, how can it be improved, what is good/bad about it? Thanks!

A related question: in your opinion, what were the successes and failures of the OLPC project, what openings and obstacles contributed to that, and where do we go from here? I've studied the Sugar design and source code, and programmed Sugar apps and widgets, including wrapping the X11/TCL/Tk version of SimCity [1] in a thin Sugar python script wrapper to make it into an activity, working on reducing the power consum…

That's not one question, that's four.

I am familiar with your port and found it unplayable on the XO laptop (although I commend you on your apparently painful task of making it run in the first place!).

While I appreciate your thoughts on the OLPC, I am more interested in Alan's thoughts on Sugar.

Nice to meet you.

Sebastian

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