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Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

1401 points alankay | 1 comments | 20 Jun 16 18:04 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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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16bytes ◴[20 Jun 16 18:40 UTC] No.11940211[source]▶
Hi Alan,

I'm preparing a presentation on how to build a mental model of computing by learning different computer languages. It would be great to include some of your feedback.

* What programming language maps most closely to the way that you think?

* What concept would you reify into a popular language such that it would more closely fit that mapping?

* What one existing reified language feature do you find impacts the way you write code the most, especially even in languages where it is not available?

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alankay1 ◴[20 Jun 16 18:44 UTC] No.11940252[source]▶
I think I'd ask "What programming language design would help us think a lot better than we do now (we are currently terrible!)

Certainly, in this day and age, the lack of safe meta-definition is pretty much shocking.

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1. nickpsecurity ◴[20 Jun 16 21:04 UTC] No.11941568[source]▶
I have a few things in my links on the topic of safe metaprogramming outside your own work. Here's a few I could remember on top of head:

Type-safe metaprogramming Sheard

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=E63...

Type-safe, reflective metaprogramming Microsoft

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/dl.aspx?id=103561

Rascal - Metaprogramming language and platform

http://www.rascal-mpl.org/

So, given work like that, what remaining tough problems are there before you would find a metaprogramming system safe and acceptable? Or do we have the fundemantals available but you just don't like the lack of deployment in mainstream or pragmatic languages and IDE's?

Note: Just dawned on me that you might mean abstract programming in the sense of specifying, analyzing, and coding up abstract requirements closer to human language. Still interested in what gripes or goals you have on that end if so.