HP Fires Father of OOP

An anonymous reader writes "Wow. Hewlett-Packard has disbanded its Advanced Software Research team and sent its leader, reknowned programmer Alan Kay, packing. From today's Good Morning Silicon Valley: 'HP is bidding adieu to legendary Silicon Valley technologist Alan Kay. A founder of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, Kay -- who once said, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it" -- was instrumental in the development of the windowing GUI and modern object-oriented programming. He envisioned a laptop computer long before the first ones rolled out and his Smalltalk programming language was a predecessor to Sun Microsystems' Java. Hard to believe HP's cutting him loose.' Maybe Apple will hire him."

Comments

Especially appropriate

[AtariAmarok]

Especially appropriate, now that the mother of "Oops!" is out of the picture.

Is Carly Fiorini hiring?

[orthogonal]

Maybe Alan Kay'll be lucky, and Carly Fiorini will hire him for wherever she's going to be CEO next!

I hear she's a wiz at turning companies around!

Oh wait....

Bad Idea

[west.to.east]

Reminds me of the "Bad Idea Jeans" SNL commercial

Favorite Alan Kay Quotation

[angst_ridden_hipster]

"I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind."
- Alan Kay

I don't know if this is a true quotation, or is apocryphal, but it's good enough to throw around at random.

I'm sure Mr. Kay will not have any problem finding a job, should he so desire one. Regardless, I wish him the best of luck.

Re:Favorite Alan Kay Quotation

[Anonymous Coward]

Clueless HR Interviewer: "Hmm, yes. You say you invented Object-Oriented Programming? That was how long ago? Ah, I see, but what have you done *lately*"

At which point, the collective hand of all programmers across the world, embodied in Alan Kay's hand, reaches across the table and slaps the shit out of the interviewer.

Not that I'm bitter. :-)

Re:Favorite Alan Kay Quotation

[Infernal Device]

My guess is that the lowest person in any company that interviewed Alan Kay would be the CEO.

It would mostly consist of:
"How big do you want your office?"
"Can I get you anything?"
"Hookers and beer? No problem!"
and
"When can you start?"

But that's just my guess.

Re:Google

[clone22]

Then again, he might know the answer to "Why are manhole covers round?"

What will happen to Teatime and Croquet?

[Dioscorea]

I wonder what will happen to Open Croquet and TeaTime without his leadership. It does seem as if Croquet has gained quite a bit of open-source momentum by this stage, and is the current best contender for bringing the world of Snow Crash to our desktop.

I just hope development on Croquet doesn't stall now, otherwise us cyberspace-lusting techno-hopefuls will just have to wait for the inevitable (but still hopefully far-off) day where you can open Word documents and Excel spreadsheets from inside World of Warcraft.

Re:Something's Fishy

[bigwavejas]

Sorry John, you're right.. silly me.

Am I still picking you up at bldg 4 in front of HP's cafeteria at 7:30pm tonight?

Re:HP Slogans

[daeley]

Actually, what they meant to say was "HP Invest." Just one letter. Simple mistake, really.

Actually actually, I think it meant to say "HP Invert", as in Rectal-Cranial Inversion, which is what HP has collectively accomplished with moves like this.

Acronym Collision

[Mr_Icon]

Harry Potter fires the father of the Order Of the Phoenix? Wha?

...

OH.

Yet More HP Slogans

[handy_vandal]

Actually, what they meant to say was "HP Invest." Just one letter. Simple mistake, really.

Actually actually, I think it meant to say "HP Invert", as in Rectal-Cranial Inversion, which is what HP has collectively accomplished with moves like this.

Fact: they meant to say "HP Invect" -- that is, to issue invective.

Examples:

"Fuck you, losers -- we're better off without you!"

And:

"HP Rules! U-S-A-!! U-S-A-!!," etc.

-kgj

Re:Yet More HP Slogans

[skraps]

Actually, what they meant to say was "HP Invest." Just one letter. Simple mistake, really.

Actually actually, I think it meant to say "HP Invert", as in Rectal-Cranial Inversion, which is what HP has collectively accomplished with moves like this.

Fact: they meant to say "HP Invect" -- that is, to issue invective.

Actual fact: they meant to say "HP Invebt" -- the meaning of which is unknown.

Re:Yet More HP Slogans

[SpaceLifeForm]

HP Indebt?

Re:Yet More HP Slogans

[Proney]

HP Inept?

'quote'

[Anonymous Coward]

Patched-up C ought to be enough for anybody!

-- NOT Mr. Bill G.

You down with OOP?

[darkmayo]

Yea you know me

Re:Smalltalk

[Anonymous Coward]

Java is the continuation of turning Smalltalk into a C-like language. Just as Objective-C was.

Re:Google

[daeley]

That's cool! Of course, since it's Google, he can spend 20% of his time working on something other than the future. Like, I don't know, the recent past or something.

Re:Google

[snorklewacker]

They're round because manholes are round.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhole_cover

It really kills me that wikipedia practically has a manhole category.

I'm going to stop saying "manhole" now.

Re:Hard to believe HP's cutting him loose?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I don't get, is why he ever went to HP in the first place.

For the same reason that we all got into CS. For the chicks.

I think I speak for all of us when I say...

[404notfound]

OOPs.

Re:Google

[mr.mighty]

Manhole is such a funny word:

Hey! Don't fall into that gaping manhole!

He managed to pack 15 workers into that manhole!

Everybody stand in line for your turn in the manhole.

He managed to get a ladder wedged into his manhole.

Re:Google

[Lord Ender]

Please, the word "manhole" is so offensive! Are you sexist? Use the word "personhole".

HP needs a new slogan

[Indy1]

the old slogan was "invent"

the new slogan .....
"merge, layoff, and go out of business"

Re:And...

[Fulcrum of Evil]

If I was HP I would be dead scared and trying to climb desperately to the middle end!

The middle end?