Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true • Hacker News Board

Re: Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true

#241

Post by alankay1 » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 5:42 AM UTC

mmiller wrote: post #234

alankay1 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually ... only the first version of Smalltalk was done in terms of the NOVA (and not using BCPL). The subsequent versions (Smalltalk-76 on) were done by making a custom virtual machine in the Alto's microcode that could run Smalltalk's byte codes efficiently. The basic idea is that you can win if the microcode cycles are enough faster than the main memory cycles so that the emulations are always waiting on main me…

I know this is getting nit-picky, but I think people might be interested in getting some of the details in the history of how Smalltalk developed. Dan Ingalls said in "Smalltalk-80: Bits of History": "The very first Smalltalk evaluator was a thousand-line BASIC program which first evaluated 3 + 4 in October 1972. It was followed in two months by a Nova assembly code implementation which became known as the Smalltalk-…

The Alto didn't get any faster, and there was not a lot of superfast microcode RAM (if we'd had more it would have made a huge difference). In the beginning we just got Smalltalk-72 going in the NOVA emulator. Then we used the microcode for a variety of real-time graphics and music (2.5 D halftone animation, and several kinds of polytimbral timbre synthesis including 2 keyboards and pedal organ). These were separate demos because both wouldn't fit in the microcode. Then Dan did "Bitblt" in microcode which was a universal screen painting primitive (the ancestor of all others). Then we finally did the byte-code emulator for Smalltalk-76. The last two fit in microcode, but the music and the 2.5 D real-time graphics didn't.

The Notetaker Smalltalk (-78) was a kind of sweet spot in that it was completely in Smalltalk except for 6K bytes of machine code. This was the one we brought to life for the Ted Nelson tribute.

Re: Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true

#242

Post by alankay1 » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 5:49 AM UTC

mmiller wrote: post #239

alankay1 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"More or less" ... I can see that it's hard after decades of "data-centric" perspectives to think in terms of "computers" rather than "data", and about semantics rather than pragmatics. It's not "data contains procedures" but that objects are (a) semantically computers, and are impervious to attack from the outside (a computer has to let an attack happen via its own internal programming), and (b) what's inside can be…

Taking your feedback into consideration, I had the thought that it would be more accurate to talk about things like "2" in an OOP context as symbols with semantics (which provide meaning to them), not data, since "data" connotes more a collection of inputs/quantities, where we may be able to attach a meaning to it, or not, and that wasn't what I was going after. I was going after a relationship between information an…

Yes, the SICP follows "simulate data" ideas much further back in the past, including the B5000 computer, and especially the OOP systems I did. But the big realization is that there are very few things that are helpful when they are passive, and the non-passive parts are the unique gift of computing. The question is not whether ideas from the past can be simulated (easy to see they can be if the building blocks are whole computers) but what do we "mean by 'meaning' "?

Good answers to this are out of the scope of HN, but we should be able to imagine -processes- moving forward in both our time and in simulated time that can answer our questions in a consistent way, and can be set to accomplish goals in a reasonable way.

Re: Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true

#243

Post by alankay1 » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 5:57 AM UTC

scroot wrote: post #238

mmiller wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great description of the problem (and great description of what we could have instead)! What came to mind as I read what you said here was a bit that I caught Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about from 8 years ago. As I heard him say this, I thought he was right on point, but I also felt sad that it's pretty obvious we're not thinking like this in computing. It turns out this is not just a problem in computing, but in sc…

> My understanding is we underwent a reorientation in the 1980s, because it was realized that there was too little attention paid to the benefits that a relatively autonomous economy can produce, killing off bad ideas, where what's being offered doesn't match with what people need or want, and allowing better ones to replace them. There was a rightward swing in the late 1970s that took root in our political system, t…

We should get "Fast Company" to interview you -- you'd do a better job! (Actually I think I did do a better job than their editing wound up with.)

Your comments and criticism of the NSF are dead-on (and is the reason I gave up on NSF a few years ago -- and I was on several of the Advisory Committees and could not convince the Foundation to be tougher about its funding autonomy -- very trick for them admittedly because of the way it is organized and threaded through both Congress and OMB).

One way to look at it is there is a sense of desperation that has grown larger and larger, and which manifests both in the powerless and the powered.

Re: Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true

#244

Post by shalabhc » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 5:57 AM UTC

scroot wrote: post #237

shalabhc wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep on with this ... This is still kind of a mishmash of early thoughts and I have a couple of different lines of thought, which I hope will come together. I'll start with a couple of observations: 1. Most programming languages and DSLs are uni-directional - the computer doesn't talk back to the human in the same language. 2. The mental models (not the language) humans use to communicate to each other, even when u…

> The main assumption here is my thoughts are organized as graphs Herbert Simon talks a lot about this in Sciences of the Artificial. It turns out most of human thinking is just lists. I'm not sure if that still stands in the field of psychology (my version of the book is pretty old, from the 80s). There's a good book (a little dense though) that might help with the more abstract thinking in the direction you're goin…

Thanks for the references! Sciences of the Artificial is already on my list.

> The main assumption here is my thoughts are organized as graphs

I realize this would be better phrased as "the information I'm trying to communicate is organized as graphs'.

Re: Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true

#245

Post by alankay » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 6:05 AM UTC

mmiller wrote: post #240

alankay wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are "story creatures" and it takes a lot of training and willpower to depart from "fond stories and beliefs" to "actually think things through". That the moon shot was just a political gesture -- and also relevant to ICBMs etc -- was known to every scientist and most engineers who were willing to think about the problem for more than a few seconds. We hoped that the -romance- of the shot would lead to the very dif…

"We are 'story creatures' and it takes a lot of training and willpower to depart from 'fond stories and beliefs' to 'actually think things through'." What your analysis did for me was help put two and two together, but yes, it "collided" with my notions of what an accomplishment it was, and what I had been led to believe that would lead to. What you exposed was that the reality of "what that would lead to" was quite…

James Fletcher -- twice the head of NASA -- had a very good speech that "the moon shot, and etc" were really about learning to coordinate 300,000 people and billions of dollars to accomplish something big in a relatively short time. (And that the US should use these kinds of experiences (wars included because the moon shot was part of the cold war), to pick "goals for good" and do these.

Most of the old hands and historians of the moon shot point to the public in the 70s no longer being afraid of the Russians in the way they had been in the 50s, and the successful moon landings helped assuage their fears. The public in general was not interested in space travel, science, etc. and did not understand it or choose to understand it. I think this is still the case today.

Re: Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true

#246

Post by alankay1 » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 6:09 AM UTC

crispinb wrote: post #233

alankay1 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See the comment by scroot above. It meshes with yours, but recognizes that the underlying culture has gone in directions that are undermining real progress and value of life. This is why I've put a fair amount of time along with many others in trying to get elementary education to a better place. I think we'll have to grow a few generations of "civilization carriers" to pull out. (And, yes, I've been staggered at the…

Yes, wholeheartedly agree with this being part of a wider cultural current. It feels like we're at a low point from which things can only improve, but I have thought that before, only to see the decline continue. My comment was a mere crise de coeur from the bottom ranks of the industry hierarchy. Reading the article and comments here was a slight shock. I had almost forgotten that these high-minded humanistic strand…

Take a look at the how the US responded to WWI re "free speech" etc, and you'll see that we haven't hit bottom yet. But we have fulfilled H.L. Mencken's 1919 prophesy:

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” H.L. Mencken, 1919

Re: Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true

#247

Post by alankay1 » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 6:11 AM UTC

da02 wrote: post #232

alankay wrote: post #124

Let me try to help this community regarding this article by providing some context. First, you need to realize that in the more than 50 years of my career I have always waited to be asked: Every paper, talk, and interview has been invited, never solicited. But there is a body of results from these that do put forward my opinions. This article was a surprise, because the interview was a few years ago for a book the in…

Yes. But, even if the field adopted a larger/better vision, you still have a bigger problem: Most smart people are attracted to mediocrity. Example: The LFTR (ie molten salt breeders) people have been trying to get their stuff adopted but most smart people (I know of) are attracted to micro-optimizing wind mills and outlawing coal. Even smart people who want to take on a larger vision are still able to snatch mediocr…

My goals are a lot bigger than Hoppe's (and I fervently hope for something much better than his vision).

Re: Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true

#248

Post by shalabhc » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 6:17 AM UTC

alankay1 wrote: post #231

alankay1 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at the first implemented Smalltalk (-72). It implemented objects internally as a "receive the message" mechanism -- a kind of quick parser -- and didn't have dedicated selectors. (You can find "The Early History of Smalltalk" via Google to see more.) This made the first Smalltalk "automatically extensible" in the dimensions of form, meaning, and pragmatics. When Xerox didn't come through with a replacemen…

I should have mentioned a few other things for the later Smalltalks. First, selectors are just objects. Second, you could use the automatic "message not understood" mechanism to field an unrecognized object. I think I'd do this by adding a method called "any" and letting it take care of arbitrary unknown objects ...

> adding a method called "any"

Right, I understand there are ways to do this with methods but my question was more about the purity aspect, which you already addressed above.

Re: Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true

#249

Post by alankay » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 1:09 PM UTC

shalabhc wrote: post #235

alankay1 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more interesting/optimized ways to map this would be where a single object in the software internet somehow maps to multiple computers ... Yes, this is the essence of Dave Reed's 1978 MIT thesis on the design of a distributed OS for the Internet of "consistent" objects mapped to multiple computers. In the early 2000s we had the opportunity to test this design by implementing it. This led to a series of systems…

> Keep on with this ... This is still kind of a mishmash of early thoughts and I have a couple of different lines of thought, which I hope will come together. I'll start with a couple of observations: 1. Most programming languages and DSLs are uni-directional - the computer doesn't talk back to the human in the same language. 2. The mental models (not the language) humans use to communicate to each other, even when u…

A clarifying comment here. When one thinks in terms of what I called objects ca 1966, one is talking about entities that from the outside are identical to what we think of as computers (and this means not just sending messages and getting outputs, but that we don't get to look inside with our messages, and our messages don't get to command, unless whatever is going on in the interior of the computer has decided to allow.

So from the outside, there are no imperatives, only requests and questions. Another way to look at this is that an object/computer is a kind of "server" (I worry to use this term because it also has "pop" meanings, but it's a good term.)

This is sometimes called "total encapsulation".

From this standpoint, we don't know what's inside. Could be just hardware. Could be variables and methods. Could be some form of ontology. Or mix and match.

This is the meaning of computers on a network, especially large worldwide ones.

The basic idea of "objects" is that what is absolutely needed for doing things at large scale, can be supplied in non-complex terms for also doing the small scale things that used to be done with data structures and procedures. Secondarily, some of the problems of data structures and procedures at any scale can be done away with by going to the "universal servers in systems" ideas.

Similarly, what we have to do for critical "data structures" -- such as large scalings, "atomic transactions", versions, redundancy, distribution, backup, and "procedural fields" (such as the attribute "age") are all more easily and cleanly dealt with using the idea of "objects".

One of the ways of looking at what happened in programming is that many if not most of the naive ways to deal with things when computers were really small did not scale up, but most programmers wanted to stay with the original methods, and they taught next gen programmers the original methods, and created large fragile bodies of legacy code that requires experts in the old methods to maintain, fix, extend ...

Re: Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true

#250

Post by alankay1 » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:54 PM UTC

shalabhc wrote: post #248

alankay1 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have mentioned a few other things for the later Smalltalks. First, selectors are just objects. Second, you could use the automatic "message not understood" mechanism to field an unrecognized object. I think I'd do this by adding a method called "any" and letting it take care of arbitrary unknown objects ...

> adding a method called "any" Right, I understand there are ways to do this with methods but my question was more about the purity aspect, which you already addressed above.

A selector is an object -- so that is pure -- and its use is a convention of the messaging, and the message itself is one object, that is an instance of Class message.

What's fun is that every Smalltalk contained the tools to make their successors while still running themselves. In other words, we can modify pretty much anything in Smalltalk on the fly if we choose to dip into the "meta" parts of it, which are also running. In Smalltalk-72, a message send was just a "notify" to the receiver that there was a message, plus a reference to the whole message. The receiver did the actual work of looking at it, interpreting it, etc.

This is quite possible to make happen in the more modern Smalltalks, and would even be an interesting exercise for deep Smalltalkers.