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Alan Kay Decries the State of Computing
gnaremooz writes "Computer pioneer Alan Kay (DARPA in the '60s, PARC in the '70s, now HP Labs) declares 'The sad truth is that 20 years or so of commercialization have almost completely missed the point of what personal computing is about.' He believes that PCs should be tools for creativity and learning, and they are falling short."
From the Article:
The chances that in the last week or year or month you've used the computer to simulate some interesting idea is zero--but that's what it's for.
I'd have to disagree with Kay here, just because his work was with education and simulation doesn't mean that is really what computers are to be used for. They're the most unique and versatile tool ever invented by man, their purpose is whatever we choose it to be at the moment.
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
Anyone who has spoken with him personally- in person or via email- or read his words, seen his vision knows this. Alan is *the* man.
There's a great XEROX Video we've here at our uni library- "Doing with images makes symbols [videorecording] : communicating with computers," released in 1987 while Kay was a fellow with Apple. For an enthusiastic and engrossing view of what Kay thinks computers *should* be (and I'm 100% with him!) should check it out.
Also, look into Smalltalk. Alan works on Squeak Smalltalk- rather than C++ or Java- and there's a good reason for it. Smalltalk has the tendency to empower both end user and programmer. It's "open source" in a way that most slashdotters have never imagined. It's kind of like having your whole computer run Emacs, but without being stuck with some funky half-GUI half-terminal app with nothing but key commands to drive it. Squeak gives us the power to control our computing environment in a way similar to emacs, although Squeak is a lot closer to a "conventional" GUI environment than Emacs. That said, there are a lot of things about Squeak's GUI toolkit - Morphic- that are highly unconventional, but quite great to have around.
OK, enough early morning rambling from me...
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Another computer visionary with vague promises and criticisms.
Instead of doing [insert clearly-defined practical thing here], you should be doing [insert vague semi-buzzword here, like "education", or "object"] and you should be using [insert visionary's product here] to do it.
Not quite...
While people are certainly welcome to disagree with Kay's vision, he's not in the same barrel of monkey that most so-called visionarise and pundits live. Unlike most of those, he's implemented those ideas, and has been spent implementing those- in real, live, usable code- for the last 30-some years. Kay doesn't have a product, he's got nothing in a box to sell. He does have an idea to sell, though you don't pay for it with your money. He's been doing it in a very practical way for 30 years, not just making vague promises.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Of course, Alan's aim is to change the tide. Hence, his work on Squeak. The goal for him is to use computers as a tool to enhance our thinking. More power to him.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
I entirely disagree. Just about everyone is born creative. Watch some little kids sometimes. When they get bored they'll take whatever toys they can get their hands on and use them as props to get completely absorbed in a storyline or world that their brain makes as they go. It may not be very complicated, but kids don't yet have much to base it on.
/. is lego. When I was younger, I had a few random sets. Some spaceships, some the city, some just plain old blocks. And I made all sorts of crap. My next door neighbor had all of the sets from one of the spaceship series (including the badass monorail), but he was so obsessed with that series itself that he would just build each object according to the instructions, and sit it on the floor with all the others. He wouldn't dare take them apart, much less let me near them. The only decisions he made was which space station outpost got put next to the lunar landing pad. That jerk was pretty much the same way with all of his GI-joes too. Until I started throwing them down the stairs, he did enjoy that.
Life does a good job of teaching us to be less creative. Our culture is so full of complicated yet boring things that we have to spend most of our time doing, and so creativity can often fall by the wayside. I'm glad that I had to take all of those math classes in grade school, but every hour that I spent doing my geometry homework was one less hour I could spend playing with photoshop. Now-a-days, I've not only got work to deal with, I've also got to spend my free time paying bills, going grocery shopping, cleaning the house, trying to understand what the hell is going on with the politics in my city, state, and country... when I sit down with a pad and paper and try to design a table that I need to build, I'm too tired to think.
Sadly enough, I think things have gotten worse for kids as well. There are so many different toys, and they have such complex features, they almost take the need for creativity away. An example talked about often on
Anyways, while some people are naturally better at being creative than others, doesn't mean many people are inherently unable to be creative. Creativity is one of the defining features of our intelligence. It's what puts our minds above those of animals. Anytime you aid the creative process, you improve it. It's not a learned skill persay, it's a Re-learned one.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.