Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today • Hacker News Board

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#201

Post by jsprogrammer » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 7:46 PM UTC

You say the problem with Xerox is that they were only interested in billions (instead of trillions).

Should we currently be interested in quadrillions, upper trillions, or, perhaps, larger? Once we become interested in an appropriately large number, what preparations should we be taking so that we can operate at that level? Do we just start putting product out there and collect the value on the open markets, or, do we need to segment markets to maximize value? Can you tell us about any other mistakes you feel Xerox might have made in realizing the value of PARC?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#202

Post by dookahku » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 7:46 PM UTC

alankay wrote: post #158

dookahku wrote: post #146

You invented a lot of what I'm using this very instant to compose this message. I yearn to do great works of engineering and art, which I consider what you have done. How do you come up with ideas?

There's coming up with ideas: learn to dream while you are awake, the ideas are there. There's coming up with a good idea: learn how to not get buried in your ideas (most are mediocre down to bad even for people who have "good idea skills"!) I write down ideas in notebooks to get rid of them. Every once in a while one will capture a different point of view. And, there's the Princeton Tea joke of scientists comparing…

I will endeavour to consider your advice and move my mind from the margins to the center. Thank you!

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#203

Post by DasIch » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 7:49 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #133

austinjp wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how can you assess this until you have gone down those rat holes?

For many particular examples, there have already been enough rathole spelunkers to provide useful data. Maybe start looking in the places where there isn't already useful data?

Any area in which enough such spelunkers are found is unlikely to be significantly improved by adding your own effort.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#204

Post by alankay1 » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 7:49 PM UTC

brebla wrote: post #15

What impresses you the most about american free enterprise? What most disappoints you about it?

If there are lots of resources more or less available, then a lot of "hunting and gathering" types can do things with them, and some other types can see about what it takes to make resources rather than just consume them. The former tends to be competitive, and the latter thrives on cooperation.

The biggest problems are that the "enterprisers" very often have no sense that they are living in a system that has many ecological properties and needs to be "tended and gardened".

Not an easy problem because we are genetically hunters and gatherers, we had to invent most of the actual sources of wealth, and these inventions were not done by the most typical human types.

Yet another thing where education with a big "E" should really make a difference (today American education itself has pretty much forgotten the "citizenship" part, which is all about systems and tending them.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#205

Post by astrodust » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 7:49 PM UTC

pault wrote: post #199

alankay wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a tough question. (And always has been in a sense, because every era has had projects where the tool building has sunk the project into a black hole.) It really helped at Parc to work with real geniuses like Chuck Thacker and Dan Ingalls (and quite a few more). There is a very thin boundary between making the 2nd order work vs getting wiped out by the effort. Another perspective on this is to think about "not…

> I'm not a big Unix fan What is your preferred technology stack?

What's a good non-UNIX open-source operating system that's useful for day-to-day work, or at least academically significant enough that it's worth diving in to?

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#206

Post by astrobe_ » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 7:50 PM UTC

shostack wrote: post #166

di wrote: post #66

Hi Alan, In "The Power of the Context" (2004) you wrote: ...In programming there is a wide-spread 1st order theory that one shouldn’t build one’s own tools, languages, and especially operating systems. This is true—an incredible amount of time and energy has gone down these ratholes. On the 2nd hand, if you can build your own tools, languages and operating systems, then you absolutely should because the leverage that…

Specifically with regards to languages and OS's, I wonder how much that cost/benefit equation shifts as things have become so much more complex, and as we continue to pile on abstraction layer after abstraction layer.

I think the problem is not complexity but size. Most of the source for the Linux kernel is in the drivers, for instance. As for languages, most of the weight is in the libraries.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#207

Post by dookahku » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 7:51 PM UTC

josteink wrote: post #169

dookahku wrote: post #146

You invented a lot of what I'm using this very instant to compose this message. I yearn to do great works of engineering and art, which I consider what you have done. How do you come up with ideas?

I'm not Alan, but I saw one of his talks[1] about how they did invent all those things we're using now, which you are very much referring to. What he said was important was to have a big horizon, at least 10 years. Anything less would not do. Then envision what should be possible in that time. "It would be ridiculous if $X wasn't possible in $Y years" and then backtrack on what would technically be required to make t…

Seems like a good a strategy as any. :) Thanks for the pointer!

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#208

Post by Dangeranger » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 7:51 PM UTC

Hello Alan,

Something that I find striking about you and your work is your cross discipline approach to hardware, software, and "humanware".

Can you speak about people and subjects which have inspired you from fields other than computer science and how they have changed you as a person and technologist.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#209

Post by stcredzero » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 7:52 PM UTC

chjohasbrouck wrote: post #180

stcredzero wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I've gone to an anime con, it seems like the older genre masters like Yoshiyuki Tomino (Gundam) were always urging the audience to get to know something besides anime/manga. Specifically to go out and get involved in something to create media about , so as to avoid producing something completely self-referential and navel-gazing. That also seems to apply to the medium of programming. (As in: Do we really nee…

> It's also related to what Scott Adams urges. It's pretty hard to get to be in the top best 10% at a single field. It's much easier to be in the top 25% of two different fields, which would make you one of the top 10% of that interdisciplinary combination. This is really great, I've been thinking about that for years. Which Scott Adams said this, and where is it from? The best tech founders often seem to have this q…

Which Scott Adams said this, and where is it from?

The Dilbert guy. It's from: https://amzn.com/1591847745

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#210

Post by alankay1 » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 7:52 PM UTC

musha68k wrote: post #113

How can I get my thinking out of the/my box?

Pay a lot of attention to realizing you (and all of us) are in "boxes". This means what we think of as "reality" are just our beliefs" and that "the present" is just a particular construction. The future need have no necessary connection to this present once you realize it is just one of many possible presents it could have been. This will allow you to make much more use of the past (you can now look at things that didn't lead to this present, but which now can be valuable).