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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

#861

Post by tremon »

gkya wrote: post #764
nkassis wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading his post I believe he meant the above mentioned things were within reach of him as a child (I don't believe he meant now as an adult). " I can't do much than hoping you either don't have children or no child's responsibility is on you otherwise." That's a strong statement to make. Implying he's unable to raise children because he'd like to see evidence that the internet actually has a negative influence on ch…

I interpreted his message as he did not only want evidence for the internet, but also the other stuff I mentioned, and their effects on kids. I'm sorry if that wasn't the case.

No, I did not mean I wanted evidence of their effect on kids. I want evidence that "putting your kid in a room full of $bad_stuff" always leads to addiction, since that strikes me as nothing more than scare stories.

Good parents can raise their children correctly even with $bad_stuff present around them, that was the point I was trying to make.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#862

Post by alankay »

olantonan wrote: post #859
alankay wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "data" without an interpreter (and when we send "data" somewhere, how can we send it so its meaning is preserved?)

So the idea is to always send the interpreter, along with the data? They should always travel together? Interesting. But, practically, the interpreter would need to be written in such a way that it works on all target systems. The world isn't set up for that, although it should be. Hm, I now realize your point about HTML being idiotic. It should be a description, along with instructions for parsing and displaying it…

TCP/IP is "written in such a way that it works on all target systems". This partially worked because it was early, partly because it is small and simple, partly because it doesn't try to define structures on the actual messages, but only minimal ones on the "envelopes". And partly because of the "/" which does not force a single theory.

This -- and the Parc PUP "internet" which preceded it and influenced it -- are examples of trying to organize things so that modules can interact universally with minimal assumptions on both sides.

The next step -- of organizing a minimal basis for inter-meanings -- not just internetworking -- was being thought about heavily in the 70s while the communications systems ideas were being worked on, but was quite to the side, and not mature enough to be made part of the apparatus when "Flag Day" happened in 1983.

What is the minimal "stuff" that could be part of the "TCP/IP" apparatus that could allow "meanings" to be sent, not just bits -- and what assumptions need to be made on the receiving end to guarantee the safety of a transmitted meaning?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#863

Post by krmboya »

dang wrote: post #808

This is one of the best threads HN has ever seen and we couldn't be more thrilled to have had such an interesting and wide-ranging discussion. I know I'm not the only one who will be going back over the wealth of insights, ideas, and pointers here in the weeks to come. Alan, a huge and heartfelt thanks from all of us. The quality and quantity (over 250 posts!) of what you shared with the community surpassed all expec…

Thanks to all who made this happen. It was really mind bending trying to parse and understand both the questions and responses, like simultaneously traveling to both the past and the future of computing.

Since then all other HN threads have felt so lightweight, and it is just now that that feeling is starting to wear off..

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#864

Post by olantonan »

alankay wrote: post #862
olantonan wrote: post #859

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the idea is to always send the interpreter, along with the data? They should always travel together? Interesting. But, practically, the interpreter would need to be written in such a way that it works on all target systems. The world isn't set up for that, although it should be. Hm, I now realize your point about HTML being idiotic. It should be a description, along with instructions for parsing and displaying it…

TCP/IP is "written in such a way that it works on all target systems". This partially worked because it was early, partly because it is small and simple, partly because it doesn't try to define structures on the actual messages, but only minimal ones on the "envelopes". And partly because of the "/" which does not force a single theory. This -- and the Parc PUP "internet" which preceded it and influenced it -- are ex…

Now it's to late to fix.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#865

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

internaut wrote: post #819
Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that disturbs me about this argument is that IMHO it's a slippery slope towards "back in my day, we didn't have this new-fangled stuff". We have to be extremely careful that our arguments have more substance than that. That requires a lot of introspection, to be honest. See, my grandparents worried that the new technology that my parents grew up with would somehow make them dumber (growing up with radio, pa…

> The thing that disturbs me about this argument is that IMHO it's a slippery slope towards "back in my day, we didn't have this new-fangled stuff". > I just think we all need to be mindful about where our concerns might be coming from. Basically we're on the same page. Here is proposition. I'll steelman the Conservative view and you tell me what you think. I promise not to claim vidya causes violence or D&D is a lea…

Thank you, this was a wonderfully thought-provoking response (also, the first season of Connections is probably my favourite documentary of all time!).

One thing I will offer is that in my household growing up, television was positive because it was an experience that we shared as a family. We would watch TV shows together, talk about them together, laugh at them together, etc. In that sense, television brought outside viewpoints into our household and spurred conversation. I think that is one of the key factors that may differentiate between TV having good effects and TV having bad effects on different people.

In a sense, I think that although television itself isn't interactive, you could say that our family was 'interactive about' television. So we got the benefits of being able to use television in a positive way.

Thanks for reminding me of how important that was for me :)

By the way, on the limitation of television being a passive medium.... This reminds me of something I read back when I was a kid that was very profound for me. I can't recall exactly now, but I think it was in a Sierra On-Line catalogue where Roberta Williams said something about wanting her children to play adventure games rather than watch television as with adventure games, they had to be actively engaged rather than passive. This really resonated with me at the time, given that I was really getting into the Space Quest & other 'Quest games :)

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#866

Post by [deleted] »

internaut wrote: post #819
Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that disturbs me about this argument is that IMHO it's a slippery slope towards "back in my day, we didn't have this new-fangled stuff". We have to be extremely careful that our arguments have more substance than that. That requires a lot of introspection, to be honest. See, my grandparents worried that the new technology that my parents grew up with would somehow make them dumber (growing up with radio, pa…

> The thing that disturbs me about this argument is that IMHO it's a slippery slope towards "back in my day, we didn't have this new-fangled stuff". > I just think we all need to be mindful about where our concerns might be coming from. Basically we're on the same page. Here is proposition. I'll steelman the Conservative view and you tell me what you think. I promise not to claim vidya causes violence or D&D is a lea…

[deleted]

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#867

Post by alankay »

olantonan wrote: post #864
alankay wrote: post #862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TCP/IP is "written in such a way that it works on all target systems". This partially worked because it was early, partly because it is small and simple, partly because it doesn't try to define structures on the actual messages, but only minimal ones on the "envelopes". And partly because of the "/" which does not force a single theory. This -- and the Parc PUP "internet" which preceded it and influenced it -- are ex…

Now it's to late to fix.

I don't think it's too late, but it would require fairly large changes in perspective in the general computing community about computing, about scaling, about visions and goals.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#868

Post by rubidium »

alankay1 wrote: post #675
lucasArg wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, in your opinion, what is the _main force_ in a good programming language? Or maybe the top 3 :)

Why don't you try to pick a few, and I'll try to comment?

things/persons/places

relationships

time

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#869

Post by jasonamyers »

aidos wrote: post #377
Joeri wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot-editing updates behavior while keeping state, causing wildly unpredictable behavior given the way objects are constructed from classes in today's languages. The current approach to OO is to bootstrap fresh state from an external source every time the behavior changes so guarantees can be made about the interaction between behavior and state. It seems to me the equivalent of using a wheelchair because you might st…

I use hot-editing in python by default and I find it incredibly useful (now I feel crippled when I'm on a system without it). There are times when I need to reload the state completely but it's pretty rare (changing something that uses metaclasses, like sqlalchemy, is one such place). Maybe there's something about the style I've adopted that lends itself more to hot-editing but it's definitely a tool I'd hate to be w…

I'm super interested in how you do that! Can you share at all?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#870

Post by gkya »

Crespyl wrote: post #802
gkya wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said myself that tech per se will make kids dumber. What I say is, there should be measures governing their exposure, just like there are for other things. Just like an alcohol drinker and an alcohol addict are different, an internet user and an internet addict are different too. Just because some or most are not addicts, we can't dismiss the addiction altogether.

It's just that it seems a bit unfair to decry (or place undue burdens upon) the vast majority of responsible alcohol drinkers because we've found a few people who have an unhealthy relationship with it. Recognizing potential dangers is a far cry from saying that there's a risk of "losing the century" because of easy access to technology and entertainment, and it strikes me as rather belittling to the younger generati…

Who are responsible alcohol drinkers? In my country the minimum age for consummation of alcoholic products is 18. What would you think of a 10 or 15 years old kid that's a responsible drinker?

What I'm arguing is against an analogue of this in tech. There is a certain period during which the exposure of a minor to technological devices should be governed by parents.

What do you think of adolescents which get recorded nude on chatrooms? Some of them commit suicide. What do you think of children victim to bullying online? What do you think of paedophiles tricking kids online? Isn't a parent responsible of protecting a minor from such abuses?

My general argument on this thread is that we should raise out children as good as we can. Protect them from danger that they cannot be conscious of. We can't certainly place burdens on adults, but we can try to raise adults that are not inept addicts with social deficiencies. And because most of the worlds population is tech-illiterate, it falls on governments to provide education and assistance to parents, just like they do so with health and education.

Most of the counter-arguments here has been strawmans, because while I'm mostly targeting children, I've been countered with arguments about adults.

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