Computer science Quotes by Alan Kay

In our society we have hard nerds and soft nerds. The hard nerds are the ones who used to have the slide rules at…

— Alan Kay

As far as Apple goes, it was a different company every few years from the time I joined in 1984.

— Alan Kay

When I first prepared this particular talk... I realized that my usual approach is usually critical. That is, a lot of the things that…

— Alan Kay

Quite a few people have to believe something is normal before it becomes normal - a sort of 'voting' situation. But once the threshold…

— Alan Kay

Every technology really needs to be shipped with a special manual - not how to use it but why, when and for what.

— Alan Kay

Java and C++ make you think that the new ideas are like the old ones. Java is the most distressing thing to hit computing…

— Alan Kay

It's hard to change information in books, but if we have everything online, then a somewhat untrustworthy group of people controlling the thing -…

— Alan Kay

Computer programmers do it byte by byte

— Alan Kay

Lisp isn't a language, it's a building material.

— Alan Kay

The tree of research must be fed from time to time with the blood of bean-counters, for it is its natural manure.

— Alan Kay

People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

— Alan Kay

I think the trick with knowledge is to “acquire it, and forget all except the perfume” - because it is noisy and sometimes drowns…

— Alan Kay