Re: Catching up: Alan Kay, Stan Lippman, Steve Vinoski...

CobraBoy (tbyars@earthlink.net)
Sat, 18 Jan 1997 08:45:42 -0800


>I'm so behind I just got around to reading Tim's post on Nov 1...
>

well better late than never..

>
>and see if this description doesn't sound like "Rohit as he wishes he
>were"...
>
>> Alan Kay's Reading List
>>
>> In response to a question for "10 or so" recommended books, Alan made
>> the following response:
>>
>> "10 or so" books is tough. I read about 300 per year and have a
>> library of about 10,000 nonfiction books. I wouldn't really know how
>> to get it down below several hundred or so. It is still a large list
>> (in the hundreds) if I limit it to nontechnical books for the general
>> reader.
>
>He then goes on to list like 200 books that really fall into nine
>distinct categories that are just plain seminal works in most every
>field of human knowledge. Forget meeting Alan Kay, I want to BE Alan
>Kay.
>

This is what I have against "smart guys." What did Alan Kay ever do? I
would venture to guess not much. He was more a victim of being in the right
place at the right time syndrom. He was nothing but a load at Apple. The
reason that Apple is in the mess their in is having to carry "visionaries"
that do nothing. For the Billion + dollars Apple spent in ten years of R&D
what did Kay contribute?

I wish I could just sit around and read a bunch of books and convince
people to pay me a ton of money. That is Kay's real talent.

Tim

--

I got two turntables and a microphone...

<> tbyars@earthlink.net <>