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As much as I agree with the sentiment presented by Alan Kay, in this talk and others, his presentations often feel bogged down in philosophical fluff and flakey

by nly 11y ago

As much as I agree with the sentiment presented by Alan Kay, in this talk and others, his presentations often feel bogged down in philosophical fluff and flakey analogy. If you want to see what I mean, mute and scan forward in the video paying attention only to the slides. It's almost impossible to tell what this talk is trying to convey from the slides alone. Nothing is concise. It's very lofty, interleaved with seemingly random stories. If this talk was given by someone without a name, we'd consider it completely whacked. The tl;dr: * Smalltalk did everything better * Software was better in the 60s and 70s * Alan Kay really dislikes the web. I'd like to see a lot more talk from his progeny/ilk about modern revivals of the philosophy from these computing heydeys, alongside practical examples of how we can do modern applications better.

11thEarlOfMar 11y ago
I'd agree that there is a pretty long way between him tossing the ball and the audience catching and running with it. I take his purpose to be to exhort the viewers to challenge their own thinking and their own purpose, rather than trying to achieve a specific improvement.
brudgers 11y ago
scan forward in the video paying attention only to the slides. It's almost impossible to tell what this talk is trying to convey I don't find it particularly surprising that not listening to a talk makes it hard to divine what the speaker said. If I didn't already believe it, the tl;dr [for a video?] would be evidence upon which I might come to such a belief.
TorbjornLunde 11y ago
While this talk could be said to be a talk where he points out problems but don’t show solutions. Anyway he has a talk here which at least show some more recent examples of what he considers a better way: Is it really "Complex"? Or did we just make it "Complicated"?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubaX1Smg6pY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubaX1Smg6pY In this he talks about two programming languages: Nile and OMeta which allows them to solve some problems in very few LOCs (among other things).
e12e 11y ago
It is most definitely a "mindset" talk more than a "concrete solutions" talk. That said, bear in mind this talk is from 2009 -- "JavaScript: The Good Parts" came out in 2008. So while what he says about web might seem entirely redundant today, with the focus on single-page apps that misses (at least) two things: it wasn't quite that obvious across the field in 2009, and perhaps more importantly, one of the concrete things he does link to, lively kernel[1] was already a real (though new, and not 1.0 stable), working system -- with persistence via WebDAV and the possibility to solve real problems. [1] http://www.lively-kernel.org/ http://www.lively-kernel.org/
coldtea 11y ago
>* If you want to see what I mean, mute and scan forward in the video paying attention only to the slides. It's almost impossible to tell what this talk is trying to convey from the slides alone.* That's why it's a speech and not a slideshow. (Besides who said you HAVE to summurize the speech in the slides? You could use them as supplementary material, and have people pay attention to your speech as opposed to PowerPoint BS). And it's a generic speach, not him presenting some paper etc. Have you seen his research work papers? >* Smalltalk did everything better Well, compared to most things we have today, especially JS, it really did. >* Software was better in the 60s and 70s No, but thinking about software was better. We got far more breakthroughs in those days compared to today -- and not just because they were "low hanging fruit". >* Alan Kay really dislikes the web. Who doesn't? Compared to what it could be?

by nly 11y ago

11thEarlOfMar 11y ago

I'd agree that there is a pretty long way between him tossing the ball and the audience catching and running with it. I take his purpose to be to exhort the viewers to challenge their own thinking and their own purpose, rather than trying to achieve a specific improvement.

brudgers 11y ago

scan forward in the video paying attention only to the slides. It's almost impossible to tell what this talk is trying to convey I don't find it particularly surprising that not listening to a talk makes it hard to divine what the speaker said. If I didn't already believe it, the tl;dr [for a video?] would be evidence upon which I might come to such a belief.

TorbjornLunde 11y ago

While this talk could be said to be a talk where he points out problems but don’t show solutions. Anyway he has a talk here which at least show some more recent examples of what he considers a better way: Is it really "Complex"? Or did we just make it "Complicated"?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubaX1Smg6pY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubaX1Smg6pY In this he talks about two programming languages: Nile and OMeta which allows them to solve some problems in very few LOCs (among other things).

e12e 11y ago

It is most definitely a "mindset" talk more than a "concrete solutions" talk. That said, bear in mind this talk is from 2009 -- "JavaScript: The Good Parts" came out in 2008. So while what he says about web might seem entirely redundant today, with the focus on single-page apps that misses (at least) two things: it wasn't quite that obvious across the field in 2009, and perhaps more importantly, one of the concrete things he does link to, lively kernel[1] was already a real (though new, and not 1.0 stable), working system -- with persistence via WebDAV and the possibility to solve real problems. [1] http://www.lively-kernel.org/ http://www.lively-kernel.org/

coldtea 11y ago

>* If you want to see what I mean, mute and scan forward in the video paying attention only to the slides. It's almost impossible to tell what this talk is trying to convey from the slides alone.* That's why it's a speech and not a slideshow. (Besides who said you HAVE to summurize the speech in the slides? You could use them as supplementary material, and have people pay attention to your speech as opposed to PowerPoint BS). And it's a generic speach, not him presenting some paper etc. Have you seen his research work papers? >* Smalltalk did everything better Well, compared to most things we have today, especially JS, it really did. >* Software was better in the 60s and 70s No, but thinking about software was better. We got far more breakthroughs in those days compared to today -- and not just because they were "low hanging fruit". >* Alan Kay really dislikes the web. Who doesn't? Compared to what it could be?