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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: 0.21s | 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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psibi ◴[20 Jun 16 18:25 UTC] No.11940049[source]▶
What do you think about functional languages like Haskell, OCaml etc ?
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alankay1 ◴[20 Jun 16 19:22 UTC] No.11940599[source]▶
They need a much better idea of time (such as approaches to McCarthy's fluents).

And then there is the issue that we need to make "systems" ...

I like what a function is, and this idea should be used, but I think it is better used rather differently ...

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1. discreteevent ◴[20 Jun 16 21:57 UTC] No.11941907[source]▶
You may have come across it already but you might be interested in "Time Reborn" by Lee Smolin. His opinion is that mathematics is a fine tool but it has lead physics to the "block universe" perspective. A reversible universe that is driven by pure immutable laws. He claims that time and spontaneous change are important.

It crossed over with some of my experience of programming. Recently he wrote "The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time" with Roberto Unger, but I haven't read that yet.