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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

#421

Post by fchopin »

Hi, Alan!

Like many here, I'm a big fan of what you've accomplished in life, and we all owe you a great debt for the great designs and features of technologies we use everyday!

The majority of us have not accomplished as much in technology, and many of us, though a minority, are in the top end of the age bell curve. I'm in that top end.

I've found over the years that I've gone from being frustrated with the churn of software/web development, to completely apathetic about it, to wanting something else- something more meaningful, and then to somewhat of an acceptance that I'm lucky just to be employed and making what I do as an older developer.

I find it very difficult to have the time and energy to focus on new technologies that come out all of the time, and less and less able as my brain perhaps is less plastic to really get into the latest JavaScript framework, etc.

I don't get excited anymore, don't have the motivation, ability, or time to keep up with things like the younger folk. Also, I've even gotten tired of mentoring them, especially as I become less able and therefore less respected.

Have you ever had or known someone that had similar feelings of futility or a serious slowdown in their career? If so, what worked/what didn't and what advice could you provide?

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to everyone you have here. It definitely is much appreciated!

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#422

Post by dangoldin »

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…

To play devil's advocate Prolog is considered much more similar to SQL than any other language and I suspect that will have an extremely high learning cost. That may be me being biased due to learning procedural languages first. At the same time I consider myself well versed in SQL.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#423

Post by gnaritas »

alankay1 wrote: post #399
gnaritas wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Try doing some after images and see what happens ...

Will do; thanks.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#424

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

Hey Alan,

You seem very disapointed and upset with the way computing has gone in the last decade. Speaking as a younger (15) and more satisfied (I still think the UNIX abstraction is pretty solid, despite what others may say) programmer, how do you not get depressed about the way technology is going?

Also, what do you propose to eliminate the "re-inventing the flat tire" problem? Should every programmer be forced through a decade of learning all of the significant abstractions, ideas, and paradigms of the last 50 years before they write anything? Because I don't see another solution.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#425

Post by slrigevol »

this is a spectacular thread. I gave up everything and traveled to the U of U in 1976 because alankay1 had done his thesis there. They got so much right in such a short time - Eliot Organick (Multics), Tony Hearn (Reduce, symbolic OS for TI 92, 89). All inspired by Alan Kay.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#426

Post by germinalphrase »

alankay1 wrote: post #389
germinalphrase wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In seeking to consider what form this “‘really good’ balance” might take, can you recommend any favored resources/implementations to illustrate what “real positive additions” computers and networking can bring to the table? I’m familiar with the influence of Piaget/Papert - but I would love to gain some additional depth on the media/networking side of the conversation. Thank you for your thoughts. I feel similarly ab…

With a good programming language and interface, one -- even children -- can create from scratch important simulations of complex non-linear systems that can help one's thinking about them.

I wish this were a better platform for fluid discussion, but I'll dig into your writings and talks (Viewpoint/Youtube/TED/elsewhere?) to gain a better understanding of your thoughts on these topics.

Thank you.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#427

Post by mchaver »

nealmydataorg wrote: post #408
danso wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach SQL to my journalism students. Example exercise: http://2015.padjo.org/tutorials/sql-walks/exploring-wsj-medi... My main reason for teaching it was that it was a skill that helped me immensely as a journalist, in terms of being able to do data analysis. Because I learned it relatively late in my career, I thought it'd be hard for the students but most of them are able to get it. Even though I use relatively l…

What are the main factors which encourage (and are helpful) non-programmers to use SQL ? We provide low code platform (SQL) to organize data and build custom applications as per specific workflow requirements. We are assuming that teaching/educating/training combined with lots of sample SQL code with real world examples are helpful to non-programmers for using SQL. Sample SQL is available at https://mydataorganizer.c…

My guess would be that there is a lot of interesting public data available in SQL/CSV/Excel formats. If a journalist can browse that data efficiently they can probably find some interesting stories and leads.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#428

Post by gdubs »

alankay wrote: post #233
LeicesterCity wrote: post #101

Hi Alan, Previously you've mentioned the "Oxbridge approach" to reading, whereby--if my recollection is correct--you take four topics and delve into them as much as possible. Could you elaborate on this approach (I've searched the internet, couldn't find anything)? And do you think this structured approach has more benefits than, say, a non-structured approach of reading whatever of interest? Thanks for your time and…

There are more than 23,000,000 books in the Library of Congress, and a good reader might be able to read 23,000 books in a lifetime (I know just a few people who have read more). So we are contemplating a lifetime of reading in which we might touch 1/10th of 1% of the extent books. We would hope that most of the ones we aren't able to touch are not useful or good or etc. So I think we have to put something more than…

The late Carl Sagan had a great sequence in the original Cosmos where he made a similar point about how many books one could read in a lifetime:

  If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand
  books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the 
  contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick 
  is to know which books to read.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#429

Post by syngrog66 »

alankay1 wrote: post #395
syngrog66 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes ...

ok that's what I thought you meant. thank you, sir! I began to realize after I hit return it was probably a redundant question, I apologize. I get starstruck a little when dealing with people whose work I've admired for so long. each time, boom, my effective IQ probably just drops right through the floor. :-)

one of your influences on me as a software engineer has been to strive for solutions which make certain things easier, all things possible, because of architecture choices, while still allowing best-of-both-worlds modalities. eg. that which is to UI's as DSL's are to a general purpose programming language.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#430

Post by Tloewald »

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…

The article was a profile of PARC in Scientific American, but I cannot tell you the specific issue. .
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