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Quote by Alan Kay

“[Computing] is just a fabulous place for that, because it's a place where you don't have to be a Ph.D. or anything else. It's a place where you can still be an artisan. People are willing to pay you if you're any good at all, and you have plenty of time for screwing around.”

Quote by Alan Kay

Author

Alan Kay is a renowned computer scientist, born on May 17, 1940. He has had a profound impact on the field of computer science, particularly in the areas of object-oriented programming and graphical user interfaces. During his tenure at Xerox PARC, Kay made significant contributions to the development of personal computers. more

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“Basic would never have surfaced because there was always a language better than Basic for that purpose. That language was Joss, which predated Basic and was beautiful. But Basic happened to be on a GE timesharing system that was done by Dartmouth, and when GE decided to franchise that, it started spreading Basic around just because it was there, not because it had any intrinsic merits whatsoever.”

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“If the pros at Sun had had a chance to fix Java, the world would be a much more pleasant place. This is not secret knowledge. It's just secret to this pop culture.”

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“I fear - as far as I can tell - that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training. I've heard complaints from even mighty Stanford University with its illustrious faculty that basically the undergraduate computer science program is little more than Java certification.”

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“I hired finishers because I'm a good starter and a poor finisher.”

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“The flip side of the coin was that even good programmers and language designers tended to do terrible extensions when they were in the heat of programming, because design is something that is best done slowly and carefully.”

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“Possibly the only real object-oriented system in working order. (About Internet)”

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“The excuses we make to ourselves when we want to do something are excellent material for soliloquies, for they are rarely made except when we are alone, and are very often made aloud.”

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