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Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

1401 points alankay | 2 comments | 20 Jun 16 18:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.476s | source

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).
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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 ...)
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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.
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alankay1 ◴[20 Jun 16 19:23 UTC] No.11940611[source]▶
How about a little model of time in a GUI?
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1. diiq ◴[20 Jun 16 19:54 UTC] No.11940893[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.
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2. msutherl ◴[20 Jun 16 22:42 UTC] No.11942180[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".