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Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

1401 points alankay | 13 comments | 20 Jun 16 18:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.593s | source | bottom

This request originated via recent discussions on HN, and the forming of HARC! at YC Research. I'll be around for most of the day today (though the early evening).
1. alankay1 ◴[20 Jun 16 18:16 UTC] No.11939957[source]▶
-- I was surprised that the HN list page didn't automatically refresh in my browser (seems as though it should be live and not have to be prompted ...)
replies(4): >>11940024 #>>11940044 #>>11940472 #>>11941664 #
2. msutherl ◴[20 Jun 16 18:23 UTC] No.11940024[source]▶
Au contraire, I'm happy that the last-seen-state is preserved and I'm given the option to refresh to see the current state should I chose to.
replies(1): >>11940081 #
3. stcredzero ◴[20 Jun 16 18:25 UTC] No.11940044[source]▶
HN feels old school. That's why I like it. (I'm considered a fossil by all of my 20, 30-something colleagues.)
replies(1): >>11946484 #
4. noobermin ◴[20 Jun 16 18:28 UTC] No.11940081[source]▶
It certainly helps when reading long replies, that's for sure. I do think a mini-update box with "click here to load" like on stackoverflow for replies or edits would be an interesting idea.

Of course, the 90's style is pretty hacker-hipster as well...can't deny that.

5. projectramo ◴[20 Jun 16 19:08 UTC] No.11940472[source]▶
Imagine: 1. trying to read something long, or 2. going off to a follow a link and to come back and respond, only to find that the page has been refreshing while you looked away. Now you have to scroll about to find the place you were at in order to respond or to continue reading the comments.
replies(2): >>11940611 #>>11947061 #
6. alankay1 ◴[20 Jun 16 19:23 UTC] No.11940611[source]▶
How about a little model of time in a GUI?
replies(2): >>11940893 #>>11941081 #
7. diiq ◴[20 Jun 16 19:54 UTC] No.11940893{3}[source]▶
This is maybe the most Alan-Kay-like response so far. Short, simple, but a tiny bit like a message from an alternate dimension. "No, no, I'm not asking you to build the also-wrong solution someone else has tried. I'm saying: solve the problem.
replies(1): >>11942180 #
8. justinpombrio ◴[20 Jun 16 20:08 UTC] No.11941081{3}[source]▶
That sounds like a feature. HN doesn't have features, only necessities.
9. jsprogrammer ◴[20 Jun 16 21:18 UTC] No.11941664[source]▶
Legend is, this forum runs on an abandoned LISP implementation.

Most things around here are not how they should seem.

replies(1): >>11954950 #
10. msutherl ◴[20 Jun 16 22:42 UTC] No.11942180{4}[source]▶
Also feels like worse-is-better vs. the right thing. How much engineering effort and additional maintenance would be required to develop and support such a time-model? A lot. Alas, let us re-create software systems to be radically simpler so that we can do the right thing! Still waiting for Urbit and VPRI's 10k line operating system ... but that's what Alan stands for in our industry: "strive to do the right thing," or as you put it, "solve the problem".
11. alankay1 ◴[21 Jun 16 15:39 UTC] No.11946484[source]▶
How old are you? "Old school" to me is what could be done at Parc, etc. ... (hint: quite a bit more than on this website ...)
12. mmiller ◴[21 Jun 16 16:42 UTC] No.11947061[source]▶
This is the way Facebook is now... Not an improvement. It's not designed for following threads, and it looks like they don't care.
13. saiko-chriskun ◴[22 Jun 16 16:07 UTC] No.11954950[source]▶
Yep- arclanguage.org.