Alan Kay

Alan Kay (American computer scientist) . Talk at Creative Think seminar, 20 July 1982.

A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
Point of view is worth 80 IQ points

Kay uses the example of solving problems using polar coordinates rather than Cartesian coordinates. Each works better in certain circumstances. Kay developed (invented) object-oriented and user interface ideas that changed computer science and led to the modern window interface with icons, the mouse, etc.

Necker Cube

Principles of duality in many fields allow the same problem to be addressed from two seemingly different points of view.

More: Duality principles

The computer revolution hasn't happened yet. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

1997.

Alan Kay has in insightful way of defining technology.
Technology is things invented after we were born. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

The question of what is and what is not technology depends on your point of view. This is the essence of information.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

Should the computer program the kid, or should the kid program the computer? Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

I had the fortune or misfortune to learn how to read fluently starting at the age of three. So I had read maybe 150 books by the time I hit 1st grade. And I already knew that the teachers were lying to me. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

Some things taught in school turn out to not be correct.

The music is not in the piano, putting pianos in a class room won't create good music. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

Alan Kay wanted to make a computer so easy to use, a child could use it. Then maybe adults could use a computer. Steve Jobs saw what Alan Kay was doing and hired him away from Xerox to create the Apple MacIntosh computer, introduced in 1984.

Alan Kay (American computer scientist) was the originator of object-oriented, having developed the Smalltalk system in 1971, since "Children should program in smalltalk".

class: general idea/blueprint of something (cookie-cutter, Platonic forms)
object: instance of a class (cookie, Aristotle potential and actualization)

I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

There is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves. This tends to result in very dumbed-down products that are easy to get started on, but are generally worthless and/or debilitating. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

School is basically about one point of view - the one the teacher has or the textbooks have. They don't like the idea of having different points of view,... Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

I fear - as far as I can tell - that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

That is, many computer science programs are coding camps but often without teachers who really understand coding and sometimes without teachers who understand computer science.

Change is easy, except for the changed part. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

I don't know how many of you have ever met Dijkstra, but you probably know that arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution hasn't started yet. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

Like learning a natural language, learning a second or third language helps you better understand the first one learned.

An important technology first creates a problem and then solves it. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

Anytime you see a turtle atop a fence post, you know it had some help. Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

Artificial intelligence is what we don't know how to do yet Alan Kay (American computer scientist)

In 1987, Alan Kay presented an interesting talk entitled Doing with images makes symbols: communicating with computers (video tape). Stanford, CA: University Video Communications.

In this talk, Alan Kay presented psychological ideas that were used to justify and direct creating a computer so easy to use a child could us it, which resulted in the Macintosh computer.

Overview:

Hear it, you forget it (symbols, facts and logic stage).
See it, you remember it (images, visual stage).
Do it, you understand it (doing, muscular stage).

Kay related the following general categories (the traits are somewhat present at all ages).

The symbol stage is thinking and he compared it to teen-agers (and beyond) and how that group learns and communicates.
The visual/image stage is seeing and he compared it to the group before teen-agers and after small children and how that group learns and communicates.
The muscular stage is doing and he compared it to how small children learn and communicate.

Key made the point that a large majority of Nobel prize winners (such as Einstein) did most of their work of the "doing" stage. They used the "thinking" stage for communicating their work to others.

The key point, then, in Alan Kay's work in making a computer so easy to use a child could use it, and then, hopefully, an adult to, is to go from the "thinking" stage back through the "visual" stage to the "doing" stage.

Smalltalk is an object-oriented language developed by Alan Kay (and others) at Xerox PARC in the 1970s.

Alan Kay wanted to make a computer so easy to use, a child could use it. Then maybe adults could use a computer. Steve Jobs saw what Alan Kay was doing and hired him away from Xerox to create the MacIntosh computer, introduced in 1984.

Many object-oriented languages followed Smalltalk which was originally based on a message passing idea as found in Simula. The Actor model followed.

In Smalltalk, everything is an object-oriented. The primary disadvantage of Smalltalk is that it is bundled as a programming environment that is not easily separated into separate programs for use individually. Alan Kay noted that children, even at the age of 3, will take a CD, put it in a computer, and use it, without thinking about it as technology.

It is just something that they interact with.
It is something that has been around their entire life.

Alan Kay (teaching children to program computers) did a lot of research in the 1970's at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Community), teaching children how to use and program computers.

Alan Kay wanted to make a computer so easy to use, a child could use it. Then maybe adults could use a computer. Kay concluded that children learned more through images and sounds than through plain text and, along with other researchers at PARC, Kay developed a simple computer system which made heavy use of graphics and animation. Some of the children became very adept at using this system; in fact, some developed complicated programs of their own with it!

Alan Kay wanted to make a computer so easy to use, a child could use it.

That's why the Mac had only one button on the mouse. It's hard to teach children the difference between left and right.

Kay reasoned that if he could make a computer so easy to use that a child could use it, perhaps the computer would become easier for adults to use too.