3 ms·

I respect Alan Kay as much as the next guy, but I don't really know what the take-away is here. Alan Kay having 4-6 hours a day to read books is certainly out

I respect Alan Kay as much as the next guy, but I don't really know what the take-away is here. Alan Kay having 4-6 hours a day to read books is certainly out of the ordinary and I can't emulate that. That's not "work day" - that seems more like "I don't have to go to work"-day. I suppose we can acknowledge that Alan Kay is making use of his time wisely. Also, what kind of books are we talking about here? I guarantee you Alan Kay is not reading a technical book like Compilers by Aho in a day. Sure, he might be physically able to read the letters on all the pages in the book, but he's not LEARNING that much information in a day. That book is 2 semesters worth of new information, not to mention that it requires practice to solidify. Even the author acknowledges this is a case of quantity over quality. How much actual learning is Alan Kay doing? Now that would be a useful point of reference. That would tell me if I have to up my learning game or if I'm doing just fine. If every week I learn one new technology like RxJava, React Native, P, etc, am I beating Alan Kay at learning, even though I might be reading fewer pages?

warcher 9y ago
Man if you learn one new technology a decade you're ahead of Alan Kay. I don't need to hear any more stories about PARC or Smalltalk. They were both wonderful, I am certain. We thank you for your service. Enjoy that Turing award, you earned it.
throw2017away 9y ago
No, you learn derivative libraries-of-the-day; the dude learns paradigms.
- optymizer 9y ago
  This was not an attack on Alan Kay. He may be learning paradigms and I may be learning the alphabet. The act of learning is similar. Does reading 1 book a day == learning or is it just like reading the news and learning about the state of the world? Certainly some activities make you learn more.
alankay1 9y ago
Always worth checking with the source ... (a) I'm quite sure I didn't tell him that I started a new book every day (note that this contradicts with a later sentence where he attributes me saying that I now read about 4 books a week). You really should realize that many people when they write, reconstruct their memories to fit what they are trying to be didactic about. (b) and nowhere in the article does he say that I spend 4-6 hours a day reading (this is something -you- ("optymizer") constructed (quite innocently I'm sure). I probably read about 2 hours a day, maybe a little more. This is enough to finish most books. And, yes, some books require quite a bit more effort and time -- both from length and wrt depth. I did start putting some effort into remembering "pretty nearly" what I read, starting in 3rd grade. However, my abilities never got to the legendary levels of some readers e.g. Bertrand Russell. (c) I didn't say I've read 20,000 books. I said I'm pretty sure I haven't read more than this. And I do know a number of people who have read more than this. In fact, I don't know how many books I've read. (d) Why bother thinking about competing? What point is there? Why not just enjoy knowledge and the fun of interrelating it?
- optymizer 9y ago
  Wow, I did not expect a reply from Alan Kay himself! Thank you for taking the time to write a thoughtful reply. I think of friendly competition as means to improve myself. It's not required, but it can be fun. Unrelated to the above, I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you the following question: what would you like to see all software engineers start doing?

warcher 9y ago

Man if you learn one new technology a decade you're ahead of Alan Kay. I don't need to hear any more stories about PARC or Smalltalk. They were both wonderful, I am certain. We thank you for your service. Enjoy that Turing award, you earned it.

throw2017away 9y ago

No, you learn derivative libraries-of-the-day; the dude learns paradigms.

optymizer 9y ago
This was not an attack on Alan Kay. He may be learning paradigms and I may be learning the alphabet. The act of learning is similar. Does reading 1 book a day == learning or is it just like reading the news and learning about the state of the world? Certainly some activities make you learn more.

alankay1 9y ago

Always worth checking with the source ... (a) I'm quite sure I didn't tell him that I started a new book every day (note that this contradicts with a later sentence where he attributes me saying that I now read about 4 books a week). You really should realize that many people when they write, reconstruct their memories to fit what they are trying to be didactic about. (b) and nowhere in the article does he say that I spend 4-6 hours a day reading (this is something -you- ("optymizer") constructed (quite innocently I'm sure). I probably read about 2 hours a day, maybe a little more. This is enough to finish most books. And, yes, some books require quite a bit more effort and time -- both from length and wrt depth. I did start putting some effort into remembering "pretty nearly" what I read, starting in 3rd grade. However, my abilities never got to the legendary levels of some readers e.g. Bertrand Russell. (c) I didn't say I've read 20,000 books. I said I'm pretty sure I haven't read more than this. And I do know a number of people who have read more than this. In fact, I don't know how many books I've read. (d) Why bother thinking about competing? What point is there? Why not just enjoy knowledge and the fun of interrelating it?

optymizer 9y ago
Wow, I did not expect a reply from Alan Kay himself! Thank you for taking the time to write a thoughtful reply. I think of friendly competition as means to improve myself. It's not required, but it can be fun. Unrelated to the above, I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you the following question: what would you like to see all software engineers start doing?