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I have total respect for Alan Kay but I hope he stops criticizing other people and actually shows his vision through his own execution (and by execution I don't

I have total respect for Alan Kay but I hope he stops criticizing other people and actually shows his vision through his own execution (and by execution I don't just mean invention of a prototype but actual productization and distribution) If you're building something visionary and are not the one who's making tons of money off of it, you have two solutions: 1. IF you're interested in making money: Try to figure out what you're doing wrong and fix it so you actually CAN capitalize on your original invention 2. IF you're NOT interested in making money: Enjoy the respect these people pay you and please don't badmouth others who worked hard to build important products that changed the world. I feel like Alan Kay is on the second boat, so my heart breaks whenever he badmouths other people who worked hard to build cool things. It doesn't matter what came first. What matters is what actually managed to pull off the ultimate success.

discreteevent 9y ago
Anyone who has put as much work into it as Kay has and delivered as many innovations is absolutely entitled to criticize. He is especially entitled to criticize products that built on his ideas but because of some fundamental flaws actually hobble the ideas and hobble society. This is important to point out and if he isn't qualified to do so then who is?
- cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
  There's a difference between badmouthing and constructive criticism. Try reading through the entire article. I did. And there's tons of badmouthing and condescension.
  - shalabhc 9y ago
    The article is filtered through another reporter and I didn't find specific instance of badmouthing (but my reading is also filtered through my own notion of where I think Alan Kay is coming from.) If you're interested in what Kay really means, maybe listen to some of his numerous other talks?
loup-vaillant 9y ago
> (and by execution I don't just mean invention of a prototype but actual productization and distribution) So, the STEPS project I mentioned above¹ doesn't count? Bret Victor's work wouldn't count? That's incredibly short sighted. You seem to have missed the part where it's really really hard to be successful with unnatural stuff, even when that stuff is unbelievably useful and valuable. Writing is unnatural, and took a long time to spread. It's still not there yet, and with the television and YouTube, we're actually reverting back a little bit. Computing is even less natural, so instead of a Victor-esque interactive wonder, we got the caveman interface, where you point and you grunt². Speaking of badmouthing, my heart breaks every time someone implies that recent Apple devices are cool. They're dystopian demons that seduced people into giving into thinking digital prisons are cool. The Apple ][ was cool. The iPad is crap (it could be cool, with the right OS). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15266230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15266230 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKxzK9xtSXM&t=2m18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKxzK9xtSXM&t=2m18s
- cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
  > So, the STEPS project I mentioned above¹ doesn't count? Bret Victor's work wouldn't count? That's incredibly short sighted. It is incredibly short sighted to make an assumption about what I said and criticize on that wrong assumption. There's a term for this logical fallacy but i forget. Anyway, there's a huge difference between coming up with an idea/prototype and turning it into a product that's meant for mainstream usage. You would only know this if you have actually built something that's meant for mainstream usage so if you don't get this it's fine, but try doing that next time and you'll realize that's true. What I'm criticizing is his comments on Apple's implementation decisions on things like the stylus. There are plenty of reasons why they decided to go that way, and I totally understand if this criticism was coming from some ignorant journalist who hasn't built anything (because they're ignorant), but Alan Kay should know better. There are way more things to consider than just ideals when you're building a real product. This is probably why Xerox Parc built so many innovative prototypes but most of them were commercialized by other companies. If they had people like Steve Jobs instead, Xerox would be Apple by now. If you think I'm being overly critical, just watch some of his speech videos on youtube, too much of what he says is based on the past and not the future.
andreasgonewild 9y ago
There are plenty of things worth doing that are not profitable. If anything, the people who made the profits where standing on the shoulders of giants like Kay; I think we can afford him some space to be grumpy over shitty execution and lack of vision. It's a matter of perspective; what you call cool things, Kay would call consumer bull crap; and I tend to agree.
- cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
  If you're not building something for people, what are you building? Art? I'm fine with that, but just because you're making art, doesn't mean everyone else is an idiot. Also I think it's very condescending to think that others didn't have vision. Lastly it's cheap to criticize someone else for "shitty execution" when you yourself have the ability to show with your own execution but you clearly haven't. It's easy to throw around the word "execution" but it's not an easy thing to do.
  - scroot 9y ago
    Herein lies a dangerous assumption prominent in neoliberal thinking: that "building something for people" is only possible by making something that is inherently "profitable." Kay has spoken endlessly on the fact that PARC was -- in spirit, structure, and personnel -- largely the last gasp of the ARPA/IPTO funding culture. That we don't have this kind of basic research funding anymore is one of the reasons we don't have inventions on par with the Internet and personal computing. This is one of the points he harps on about. Few companies today will create anything that is a truly shattering invention, for the simple fact that companies are not structured to invest the time and money in ways that such inventions demand: decade long cycles, where failure and "wasting" money is the norm. The quarterly earnings cycle prevents this. What's worse, that cycle has been absorbed into the way politicians and governments now think. Today the NSF wants you to demonstrate how your research will produce the desired results when applying for grants. That's not how exploratory basic research works. You'll only ever get more arcane iterations on current systems and technologies. Kay has spent his life doing this kind of exploratory research. PARC, Squeak, STEPS -- I'd call all of that "execution." But perhaps others who see businesses and profits as the sole reason to get up in the morning would disagree.
mariodiana 9y ago
> and actually shows his vision through his own execution As Steve Jobs reportedly was fond of saying, "Great artists ship."
- scroot 9y ago
  Among the shallowest of cheapjack Silicon Valley slogans. But certainly revealing of its ethos. In such a climate one could be forgiven for imagining that not everything has to be a commercial product to be used, appreciated, or valuable. What slovenly "artists" we had in the government oh so long ago, who never "shipped" the Internet.
  - mariodiana 9y ago
    What would the Internet be like today had it remained a government project?
    - scroot 9y ago
      Not the point. "What would information technology be like today if ARPA/IPTO style funding still existed?" would be the more relevant question. I'd call those dudes "great artists". That's the community Kay comes from, the one that gave rise to the Internet, PARC, and everything else that several generations of hustlers have made careers off iterating upon. It's also worth noting that TCP/IP was able to outfox the planned X.25 ISO standard for international network transport in large part because ARPA was releasing code and standards for free and testing it live. All of that happened before the Internet was commercialized.

discreteevent 9y ago

Anyone who has put as much work into it as Kay has and delivered as many innovations is absolutely entitled to criticize. He is especially entitled to criticize products that built on his ideas but because of some fundamental flaws actually hobble the ideas and hobble society. This is important to point out and if he isn't qualified to do so then who is?

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
There's a difference between badmouthing and constructive criticism. Try reading through the entire article. I did. And there's tons of badmouthing and condescension.
- shalabhc 9y ago
  The article is filtered through another reporter and I didn't find specific instance of badmouthing (but my reading is also filtered through my own notion of where I think Alan Kay is coming from.) If you're interested in what Kay really means, maybe listen to some of his numerous other talks?

loup-vaillant 9y ago

> (and by execution I don't just mean invention of a prototype but actual productization and distribution) So, the STEPS project I mentioned above¹ doesn't count? Bret Victor's work wouldn't count? That's incredibly short sighted. You seem to have missed the part where it's really really hard to be successful with unnatural stuff, even when that stuff is unbelievably useful and valuable. Writing is unnatural, and took a long time to spread. It's still not there yet, and with the television and YouTube, we're actually reverting back a little bit. Computing is even less natural, so instead of a Victor-esque interactive wonder, we got the caveman interface, where you point and you grunt². Speaking of badmouthing, my heart breaks every time someone implies that recent Apple devices are cool. They're dystopian demons that seduced people into giving into thinking digital prisons are cool. The Apple ][ was cool. The iPad is crap (it could be cool, with the right OS). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15266230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15266230 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKxzK9xtSXM&t=2m18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKxzK9xtSXM&t=2m18s

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
> So, the STEPS project I mentioned above¹ doesn't count? Bret Victor's work wouldn't count? That's incredibly short sighted. It is incredibly short sighted to make an assumption about what I said and criticize on that wrong assumption. There's a term for this logical fallacy but i forget. Anyway, there's a huge difference between coming up with an idea/prototype and turning it into a product that's meant for mainstream usage. You would only know this if you have actually built something that's meant for mainstream usage so if you don't get this it's fine, but try doing that next time and you'll realize that's true. What I'm criticizing is his comments on Apple's implementation decisions on things like the stylus. There are plenty of reasons why they decided to go that way, and I totally understand if this criticism was coming from some ignorant journalist who hasn't built anything (because they're ignorant), but Alan Kay should know better. There are way more things to consider than just ideals when you're building a real product. This is probably why Xerox Parc built so many innovative prototypes but most of them were commercialized by other companies. If they had people like Steve Jobs instead, Xerox would be Apple by now. If you think I'm being overly critical, just watch some of his speech videos on youtube, too much of what he says is based on the past and not the future.

andreasgonewild 9y ago

There are plenty of things worth doing that are not profitable. If anything, the people who made the profits where standing on the shoulders of giants like Kay; I think we can afford him some space to be grumpy over shitty execution and lack of vision. It's a matter of perspective; what you call cool things, Kay would call consumer bull crap; and I tend to agree.

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
If you're not building something for people, what are you building? Art? I'm fine with that, but just because you're making art, doesn't mean everyone else is an idiot. Also I think it's very condescending to think that others didn't have vision. Lastly it's cheap to criticize someone else for "shitty execution" when you yourself have the ability to show with your own execution but you clearly haven't. It's easy to throw around the word "execution" but it's not an easy thing to do.
- scroot 9y ago
  Herein lies a dangerous assumption prominent in neoliberal thinking: that "building something for people" is only possible by making something that is inherently "profitable." Kay has spoken endlessly on the fact that PARC was -- in spirit, structure, and personnel -- largely the last gasp of the ARPA/IPTO funding culture. That we don't have this kind of basic research funding anymore is one of the reasons we don't have inventions on par with the Internet and personal computing. This is one of the points he harps on about. Few companies today will create anything that is a truly shattering invention, for the simple fact that companies are not structured to invest the time and money in ways that such inventions demand: decade long cycles, where failure and "wasting" money is the norm. The quarterly earnings cycle prevents this. What's worse, that cycle has been absorbed into the way politicians and governments now think. Today the NSF wants you to demonstrate how your research will produce the desired results when applying for grants. That's not how exploratory basic research works. You'll only ever get more arcane iterations on current systems and technologies. Kay has spent his life doing this kind of exploratory research. PARC, Squeak, STEPS -- I'd call all of that "execution." But perhaps others who see businesses and profits as the sole reason to get up in the morning would disagree.

mariodiana 9y ago

> and actually shows his vision through his own execution As Steve Jobs reportedly was fond of saying, "Great artists ship."

scroot 9y ago
Among the shallowest of cheapjack Silicon Valley slogans. But certainly revealing of its ethos. In such a climate one could be forgiven for imagining that not everything has to be a commercial product to be used, appreciated, or valuable. What slovenly "artists" we had in the government oh so long ago, who never "shipped" the Internet.
- mariodiana 9y ago
  What would the Internet be like today had it remained a government project?
  - scroot 9y ago
    Not the point. "What would information technology be like today if ARPA/IPTO style funding still existed?" would be the more relevant question. I'd call those dudes "great artists". That's the community Kay comes from, the one that gave rise to the Internet, PARC, and everything else that several generations of hustlers have made careers off iterating upon. It's also worth noting that TCP/IP was able to outfox the planned X.25 ISO standard for international network transport in large part because ARPA was releasing code and standards for free and testing it live. All of that happened before the Internet was commercialized.