Jump to content
Spock

Programming and Scaling

Recommended Posts

Posted

http://tele-task.de/archive/video/flash/14029/

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4325

Programming and Scaling, a one-hour lecture by Alan Kay at his finest (and that's saying something!)

Some of my favorite quotes:

"The biggest problem we have as human beings is that we confuse our beliefs with reality."

"We could imagine taking the internet as a model for doing software modules. Why don't people do it?" (~00:17)

"One of the mistakes that we made years ago is that we made objects too small." (~00:26)

"Knowledge in many cases trumps IQ. [Henry] Ford was powerful because Isaac Newton changed the way we think." (~00:28)

"Knowledge is silver. Outlook is gold. IQ is a lead weight." (~00:30)

"Whatever we [in computing] do is more like what the Egyptians did. Building pyramids, piling things on top of each other."

"The ability to make science and engineering harmonize with each other - there's no greater music." (~00:47)

And there are some other nice ideas in there: "Model-T-Shirt Programming" - software the definition of which fits on a T-shirt. And imagining source code sizes in terms of books: 20,000 LOC = a 400-page book. A million LOC = a stack of books one meter high. (Windows Vista: a 140m stack of books.)

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...