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It's important not to let pragmatism wander into anti-intellectualism. "pedagogy, psychology, and mathematics" are all well-defined terms with non-bullshit mea

It's important not to let pragmatism wander into anti-intellectualism. "pedagogy, psychology, and mathematics" are all well-defined terms with non-bullshit meanings. Montessori, Papert and Bruner are well-known names whose theories would be familiar to anyone with a background in learning theory. McLuhan (the "medium is the message" guy) is similarly well-known in media circles, and if you want to understand why Alan Kay thinks he's important, he wrote about it: https://kokonautlabs.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/alan-kay-on-marshal-mcluhan-and-the-personal-computer/ https://kokonautlabs.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/alan-kay-on-ma... I'm not saying you're wrong to dislike the article or Kay, but the way that you got there seems to be by saying "they rely on a bunch of bullshit that nobody understands". How are you, presumably lacking a background in the ideas they are talking about, able to determine the difference between good theory and bullshit? If you want to reason about something, like how people learn, or how technology shapes thought, how would you do that without building a theory about it? How would you build that theory without ideas? How would you refer to those ideas without names? Is your criticism anything more than just that you don't know the names in a field you aren't familiar with? God bless the real engineers who make things work; programming and the personal computer were revolutionized with the availability of hardware like TTL ICs, not pseudo-engineers bloviating about "structured programming". But I've seen the code written by real engineers, and they could perhaps use a little less pragmatism and a little more theory. Thinking in abstractions can certainly lead to bullshit, but I'd rather that than no thinking at all.

QuadrupleA 9y ago
Agreed, with regard to the quote about Montessori, Papert and Bruner, I don't have the necessary background knowledge to truly evaluate the statement. The terms "pedagogy", "psychology" and "mathematics" are very broad though - not meaningless, but nearly so in this context. If you say somebody combined teaching in general, theories of human thinking in general, and mathematical reasoning in general, that's too broad to really get any sense of what's being talked about, and whether the ideas are valuable or just hot air. I guess I've come to be suspicious of pure philosophy, or theory divorced from practice. A broad idea can be wonderful when it's used alongside actual practice (like Bret Victor's explorations of immediate visual feedback and interactivity in creative tools and programming tools). But when it stays in the theoretical realm it can get insidious: perhaps designed to impress rather than inform. I haven't deeply dived into Alan Kay's work except for learning a bit of smalltalk (and enjoying it), but everything I've come across since leaves me scratching my head wondering if there's much substance under all the semi-profound and abstract talk. So I guess I'm expressing my growing antipathy towards pure theorizing divorced from practical implementation. Together they can be wonderful, but if grand ideas are floated around in a vaccum too long they start to stink.
- petra 9y ago
  I think there are a few things in play that affect Kay's behavior, since he is a basic researcher: 1. He needs grants. Grand theories and "bullshit" sell at that context. 2. Basic research isn't a tool to gain working systems. It's a tool to gain knowledge, including negative knowledge. And to some extent a fair way to judge a basic researcher is "What have you tried? How seriously did you try it?". And yes, even though i think Kay is definetly full of himself, He does achieve to do ambitious and interesting basic research(like the VPRI steps program, trying to build a full compute stack ala windows in 10K LOC via DSL's).

QuadrupleA 9y ago

Agreed, with regard to the quote about Montessori, Papert and Bruner, I don't have the necessary background knowledge to truly evaluate the statement. The terms "pedagogy", "psychology" and "mathematics" are very broad though - not meaningless, but nearly so in this context. If you say somebody combined teaching in general, theories of human thinking in general, and mathematical reasoning in general, that's too broad to really get any sense of what's being talked about, and whether the ideas are valuable or just hot air. I guess I've come to be suspicious of pure philosophy, or theory divorced from practice. A broad idea can be wonderful when it's used alongside actual practice (like Bret Victor's explorations of immediate visual feedback and interactivity in creative tools and programming tools). But when it stays in the theoretical realm it can get insidious: perhaps designed to impress rather than inform. I haven't deeply dived into Alan Kay's work except for learning a bit of smalltalk (and enjoying it), but everything I've come across since leaves me scratching my head wondering if there's much substance under all the semi-profound and abstract talk. So I guess I'm expressing my growing antipathy towards pure theorizing divorced from practical implementation. Together they can be wonderful, but if grand ideas are floated around in a vaccum too long they start to stink.

petra 9y ago
I think there are a few things in play that affect Kay's behavior, since he is a basic researcher: 1. He needs grants. Grand theories and "bullshit" sell at that context. 2. Basic research isn't a tool to gain working systems. It's a tool to gain knowledge, including negative knowledge. And to some extent a fair way to judge a basic researcher is "What have you tried? How seriously did you try it?". And yes, even though i think Kay is definetly full of himself, He does achieve to do ambitious and interesting basic research(like the VPRI steps program, trying to build a full compute stack ala windows in 10K LOC via DSL's).