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Slagging someone who approached computing the way Alan Kay has tirelessly advocated for his whole career by pointing out how short he falls of Alan Kay seems a

by jfager 16y ago

Slagging someone who approached computing the way Alan Kay has tirelessly advocated for his whole career by pointing out how short he falls of Alan Kay seems a little, uh, un-Alan-Kay-like.

jacquesm 16y ago
True enough, I concede that it is un-Alan Kay like, but then again, I definitely am not Alan Kay. I just think that there are plenty of people that have done a lot more for programming in general than _Why (or however you spell it 'properly'), and that to exaggerate like this is not helping at all. Plenty of people are busy today doing very interesting stuff, let's go and talk about that instead of endless pouring over the ashes of one very briefly very productive programmer, artist if you wish. He choose to limit his contribution, I have heard more about _why and how fantastic his works are since he quit than I ever did before. Too much fandom, which in turn actually does _why a disservice because it turns off those that would otherwise still be open minded. edit: it is precisely because of the similarity in goal that I mentioned Alan Kay by the way, and I think Alan Kay has gone about it in a lot more structural fashion that _why, he's also still at it instead of taking his toys home because people won't play his way.
jacquesm 16y ago
I've been thinking about this a bit more, and I think in fact that the reference to Alan Kay was probably quite appropriate. Alan Kay has been at it for decades, _why has done it for a few years and then destroyed (or at least, attempted to destroy) whatever he made. Now, in principle, that is his good right, but when you're an educator and people have started to come to depend on your educational tools and have built a little eco-system around it destroying it is an extremely selfish act and causes a lot of damage. The very least he could have done would have been to transfer the maintenance to others in an orderly way in stead of this wanton act of vandalism, and without a second of warning to boot. _why was a very good influence during the first period and he may have approached computing the way Alan Kay has tirelessly advocated for his whole career, but he wiped out a lot of that credit at the end.

by jfager 16y ago

Slagging someone who approached computing the way Alan Kay has tirelessly advocated for his whole career by pointing out how short he falls of Alan Kay seems a little, uh, un-Alan-Kay-like.

jacquesm 16y ago

True enough, I concede that it is un-Alan Kay like, but then again, I definitely am not Alan Kay. I just think that there are plenty of people that have done a lot more for programming in general than _Why (or however you spell it 'properly'), and that to exaggerate like this is not helping at all. Plenty of people are busy today doing very interesting stuff, let's go and talk about that instead of endless pouring over the ashes of one very briefly very productive programmer, artist if you wish. He choose to limit his contribution, I have heard more about _why and how fantastic his works are since he quit than I ever did before. Too much fandom, which in turn actually does _why a disservice because it turns off those that would otherwise still be open minded. edit: it is precisely because of the similarity in goal that I mentioned Alan Kay by the way, and I think Alan Kay has gone about it in a lot more structural fashion that _why, he's also still at it instead of taking his toys home because people won't play his way.

jacquesm 16y ago

I've been thinking about this a bit more, and I think in fact that the reference to Alan Kay was probably quite appropriate. Alan Kay has been at it for decades, _why has done it for a few years and then destroyed (or at least, attempted to destroy) whatever he made. Now, in principle, that is his good right, but when you're an educator and people have started to come to depend on your educational tools and have built a little eco-system around it destroying it is an extremely selfish act and causes a lot of damage. The very least he could have done would have been to transfer the maintenance to others in an orderly way in stead of this wanton act of vandalism, and without a second of warning to boot. _why was a very good influence during the first period and he may have approached computing the way Alan Kay has tirelessly advocated for his whole career, but he wiped out a lot of that credit at the end.