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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: 0.001s | 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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shkaboinka ◴[21 Jun 16 18:12 UTC] No.11947986[source]▶
I've seen similarities between your work (OOP) and that of Christopher Alexander (Patterns).

Do you have anything to say about how your/his works tie together?

(Note that Alexander's work is perhaps even more misrepresented in software than OOP has come to be).

For example, he talks a lot about how anything that is to evolve naturally, or even properly serve the human component, must be composed of living structure.

video of C.A. addressing the software community's (mis-)application of his work at OOPSLA: https://youtu.be/98LdFA-_zfA

replies(1): >>11953585 #
alankay1 ◴[22 Jun 16 13:13 UTC] No.11953585[source]▶
My favorite Alexander book by far is "Notes on a Synthesis of Form" (which he has disavowed ...)
replies(1): >>11961290 #
1. shkaboinka ◴[23 Jun 16 14:49 UTC] No.11961290[source]▶
Here is a PDF of a version with an added preface with that disavowment. His reasoning (focus on human application rather than just on method itself) makes sense to me, but I'm still excited to see read the methods.

https://monoskop.org/images/f/ff/Alexander_Christopher_Notes...