Alan Kay Quotes

It used to be the program's purpose to instruct our computers; it became the computer's purpose to execute our programs.

There is a constant need for new systems and new software.

The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can economically and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic experience much like composing poetry or music.

Java and C++ make you think that the new ideas are like the old ones. Java is the most distressing thing to hit computing since MS-DOS.

Software was changing so fast, so unbelievable, that that got very quick adoption.

It's pretty amazing to go from a world where computers were unheard of and very complex to where they're a tool of everyday life.

The next generation of interesting software will be done on the Macintosh, not the IBM PC.

You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.

Software is the magic thing whose importance only goes up over time.

I really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course--the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end.

Of course, C proved indispensible to the developers of all its alternatives. Dig down through enough implementation layers under any of the other languages surveyed here and you will find a core implemented in pure, portable C

The function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production by exploiting an invention or, more generally, an untried technological possibility for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry and so on.

I obviously think that freely available software can not only keep up with the evolution of commercial software, but often exceed what you can do commercially.

There might be new technology, but technological progress itself was nothing new - and over the years it had not destroyed jobs, but created them.

I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.

There are more useful systems developed in languages deemed awful than in languages praised for being beautiful - many more.

[We in Microsoft] are not the only software company but we are a great software company doing some unique work.

Things like social media and the Internet, of course, it's not going away. There is no cure for it. And this shouldn't be just like there shouldn't be, you know - it would have been a tragedy if there was a cure for the printing press. I think it's just that it's an amazing tool that we as a - as an animal are just getting to grips with because it's like we've grown a new ultra powerful limb and we're learning how to use it.

Learning to program has no more to do with designing interactive software than learning to touch type has to do with writing poetry

The biggest effect of the personal computer revolution has been to allow millions and millions of people to experience computers themselves decades before they ever would have in the old paradigm.

Something will eventually replace the Internet. But it's hard to know what and when it will happen.

I made up the term "object-oriented," and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.

But the most reliable indication of the future of Open Source is its past: in just a few years, we have gone from nothing to a robust body of software that solves many different problems and is reaching the million-user count. There's no reason for us to slow down now.

I used to be enamored of object-oriented programming. I'm now finding myself leaning toward believing that it is a plot designed to destroy joy.

Any time where the delta b/w what is possible and how things work today is at its widest, that's an opportunity to go build new technology.