[vanderZwan]

Funny thing is that Alan Kay himself often comes across just as arrogant these days.

"Comes across", because more often than not I think it's more likely that people who are too pleased with themselves don't like to be told that, really, what they've achieved isn't good enough, or even misguided. Even if, or perhaps especially if, the person who tells them that (Dijkstra when it comes to programming, Kay when it comes to HCI) is right or at least has a very good point.

[syngrog66]

> Funny thing is that Alan Kay himself often comes across just as arrogant these days.

indeed! no tumblr posts. no videos on YouTube. no SnapChats. no downloadable apps on Steam, and no Kickstarters. no accepted PR's on GH. no certs. and a pretty low Influencer (TM) rating on FooBlamWooBlah.io. therefore, he's obviously a slacker! or a sock puppet. prob yet-another-teen-in-his-mothers-basement. guy probably needs to discover things like "Khan Academy" and Bitcoin and Node.js

(/s)

[justin66]

What recent talks has Kay given? To be honest, my only criticism of him based on what I've seen the last decade is that he's reusing too much of the same material, even though he certainly has a lot more to say.

[vanderZwan]

The thing is that I think he is hung up on the masses still not really getting that material, so he keeps repeating himself.

Kinda like how a teacher will repeat the same material because he keeps getting new kids every year.

Also, there's this single question by him on Stack Overflow, where he keeps replying to people with "nope, already had that in the 60s/70s":

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/432922/significant-new-in...

[nickpsecurity]

I'm bookmarking that. Appreciate the link. You're mischaracterizing it a bit, though. He usually gave the specific counter-example(s) of what was there first so person could look it up. The only one I disagreed with was Prolog for declarative programming. "Portman" was right that real-world use of it typically requires extra steps for the how as much as the what. I've read many horror stories, even for modern implementations.

[justin66]

That SO thread is so far above the SO average that I wouldn't feel right nitpicking anything about it. I appreciated that Kay complimented a few ideas he thought were good.

The whole "that idea was invented in the 60s/70s" thing is interesting because it so often triggers a meta-discussion about progress and what makes it difficult. I always want to take a different approach, drop everything, and really examine and dissect the thing and why the idea hasn't been advanced or abandoned. Depth-first search vs. breadth-first search, or something, I guess...

[sukilot]

Kay is the reductio but forgot the absurdum. The natural numbers are the most recent invention in computer science. The rest is just implementation details.

[mcguire]

You guys realize he's right over there https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11799963, right?

:-)

[vanderZwan]

Did not expect that! I hope he read my comments about him as the implied compliments I intended them to be; being an interaction designer he's one of my biggest heroes! :)