

The Real Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet (Alan Kay, 2007) - johkra
http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m2007007a_revolution.pdf

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david927
Thank God for Alan Kay. When I get depressed with the state of the industry,
with the twitter mashup get-rich-quick schemes and the lack of any interest in
working hard on the hard problems, it helps to know that he's around and
leading the charge against that tsunami of frivolity.

~~~
hga
Indeed ... but are he and the VPRI getting anywhere?

I don't know; by an accident of history I'm a Lisper, not a Smalltalker, so
I'm not following them closely. But I don't get an impression of serious focus
or progress.

Please correct me if I'm wrong; I sure would like to be, and I'm certainly
finding a lot of the ideas they're throwing out to be extremely useful (or at
least fascinating). E.g. generate your TCP/IP stack from the RFCs....

~~~
johkra
I spend some time on their page today and another fascinating subject are
active essays: <http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2009002_active_essays.pdf>

Basically, it's about adding runable and editable code directly into
documents, one could say literate programming on steroids. Imagine for
instance an article explaining an algorithm with embedded code which you could
run and edit to really comprehend it.

~~~
hga
Literate programming is a neat idea, and in the long term will probably be
very valuable (or else we'll live in a Vernor Venge like dystopia of eons old
cruft), but for now I'm not sure it's generally useful.

If your program is at all a serious work in progress, you're likely getting
into the "too many comments that violate Don't Repeat Yourself" land.

