alankay1

14 ms·

91.
by alankay1 10y ago
A start here would be to see if your reading of the AMA resulted in an accurate memory. For example, did I actually claim to have read "20,000+ books"? What did I actually say? No amount of speed is going to help if the recall is
92.
by alankay1 10y ago
I was quite disappointed in this book -- having followed Kahneman since his early research with pupillometry as an indication of interest. I agree with many of the comments in this thread. Given the author -- and the importance of the subje
93.
by alankay1 10y ago
These are often important, useful, and needed. I would take a different perspective that puts as "higher forces" things like: -- what helps thinking about things in general, about problems, and resolving them (epistemological conc
94.
by alankay1 10y ago
TCP/IP is "written in such a way that it works on all target systems". This partially worked because it was early, partly because it is small and simple, partly because it doesn't try to define structures on the actual m
95.
by alankay1 10y ago
It's worth pondering the real implications of real objects as real virtual machines intercommunicating by messages (they were inspired in part by the pervasive world-wide networking that was part of Licklider's vision). One way to
96.
by alankay1 10y ago
You probably know that our mutual friend and mentor Jerry Bruner died peacefully in his sleep a few weeks ago at the age of 100, and with much of his joie de vivre beautifully still with him. There will never be another Jerry.
97.
by alankay1 10y ago
Yes, look at Lincos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincos_(artificial_language)
98.
by alankay1 10y ago
A good question isn't it? For parallel ideas and situation, take a look at Lincos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincos_(artificial_language)
99.
by alankay1 10y ago
The question is whether a "message" has enough "stuff" to reify into a real process (so it can help interpretation and negotiation) or whether the receiver has to do all the work (and thus perhaps has to know too much fo
100.
by alankay1 10y ago
One of many problems with trying to use Unix as "modules" and "objects" is that they have things that aren't objects (like strings, etc) and this makes it difficult for arranging various scales and extensions of use
101.
by alankay1 10y ago
Better to invent the electric light bulb than to cope with candles ... ?
102.
by alankay1 10y ago
Just to bring up one possibly helpful analogy: Suppose we have a good model of atoms -- how much of this will be a good way to think about living systems? (Or should we come up with better and more useful architectural ideas that are a bett
103.
by alankay1 10y ago
The basic principle of both points above is that "problem finding" is the hardest thing in "real research", so a lot of things need to be done to help this ... (this is a very tough sell and even "explain" toda
104.
by alankay1 10y ago
The research community was "an arguing community", and knew how to argue "in good ways" (i.e. no personal attacks, only trying to illuminate the issues, etc.) This worked pretty well almost always ... (The weekly meeting
105.
by alankay1 10y ago
I think for so many important cases, this is almost the only way to do it. The problems were caused by short-sighted vendors and programmers getting locked into particular computers and OS software. For contrast, one could look at a much mo
106.
by alankay1 10y ago
There is a very old reading list online I made for the company that is now Accenture -- and this was the subject of a recent HN "gig". I think there is a URL for this discussion in this AMA.
107.
by alankay1 10y ago
What would a simulation of an epidemic look like? Or a simulation of ants finding food via pheromone trails. Or simulation of dye diffusing in water? Or a simulation of an object being dropped? Etc
108.
by alankay1 10y ago
I think you can find much of what is worth knowing about these projects starting there.
109.
by alankay1 10y ago
Historically, (1) has not particularly depended on merit, and (2) would require a lot (because "nice atoms" were more interesting back in the 60s than today).
110.
by alankay1 10y ago
None of my peeves are "pets"
111.
by alankay1 10y ago
I like what Sam Altman is setting up and fostering
112.
by alankay1 10y ago
I don't keep track of them ...
113.
by alankay1 10y ago
"Most ideas are mediocre down to bad" -- and mine certainly have been. Beyond ideas, I would do some process things differently, especially those that could have been done better if I had been able to understand people better.
114.
by alankay1 10y ago
If it were done much better ...
115.
by alankay1 10y ago
Too absolute, but I like Erlang
116.
by alankay1 10y ago
I had the great -- and lucky -- benefit of falling into a well established research community -- ARPA-IPTO -- in the 60s with roots going back into the 50s and 40s. They "knew how to make progress" and I learned most of what littl
117.
by alankay1 10y ago
I wasn't involved in GRAIL, but was (and am) a huge admirer of what these people were able to do (and when they were able to do it). Worth really looking into the history here! The current state of programming (visual or not) for chi
118.
by alankay1 10y ago
I like "messages" as "non-command" things. And I left out inheritance in the first Smalltalk because I didn't think Simula's version was semantic enough (and still don't). The idea of a "generalizatio
119.
by alankay1 10y ago
I'm not satisfied. They have more computing power and display resolution and depth than my minimums back then, but don't pay strong enough attention to "services" (one of the simplest they don't do well enough -- an
120.
by alankay1 10y ago
When I write code it is usually either "kiddicode" for future "kiddilanguages" or "metacode" (for future languages ".") I did have a lot of fun last year writing code in a resurrected version of the N

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