Java and C++ make you think that the new ideas are like the old ones. Java is the most distressing thing to… — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware. — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
In computers, every 'new explosion' was set off by a software product that allowed users to program differently. — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
When I first got to Apple, which was in '84, the Mac was already out, and 'Newsweek' contacted me and asked me… — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
[Computing] is just a fabulous place for that, because it's a place where you don't have to be a Ph.D. or anything… — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
The idea that hardware on networks should just be caches for movable process descriptions and the processes themselves goes back quite a… — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
The protean nature of the computer is such that it can act like a machine or like a language to be shaped… — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent… — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
Computer science inverts the normal. In normal science, you're given a world, and your job is to find out the rules. In… — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
It (the computer) is a medium that can dynamically simulate the details of any other medium, including media that cannot exist physically.… — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution hasn't started yet. — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
Because people don't understand what computing is about, they think they have it in the iPhone, and that illusion is as bad… — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
It [the computer] is the first metamedium, and as such it has degrees of freedom for representation and expression never before encountered… — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
As far as Apple goes, it was a different company every few years from the time I joined in 1984. — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Every technology really needs to be shipped with a special manual - not how to use it but why, when and for what. — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware. — Alan Kay Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image