Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

hi Alan!

Q: I've always been a big fan both of text console accessible UI's like CLI's and REPL's as well as of GUI's. In my mind they each clearly have a different mix of strengths and weaknesses. One way a user might have a bit of the "best of both worlds" potentially is an app or client featuring a hybrid input design where all 3 of these modes are available for the user to drive. Any thoughts on that?

I'm writing a paper in my free time about some architectural ideas in this area and would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to tell me this is a FAQ and that I should go read a particular book/paper of yours, and/or to get off your lawn. :-)

thank you!

Smalltalk and some other languages have all three -- easy to do if the system is a "certain way".

thanks! do you mean if the underlying architecture design makes it easier?

Yes ...

ok that's what I thought you meant. thank you, sir! I began to realize after I hit return it was probably a redundant question, I apologize. I get starstruck a little when dealing with people whose work I've admired for so long. each time, boom, my effective IQ probably just drops right through the floor. :-)

one of your influences on me as a software engineer has been to strive for solutions which make certain things easier, all things possible, because of architecture choices, while still allowing best-of-both-worlds modalities. eg. that which is to UI's as DSL's are to a general purpose programming language.