(2005-03-27) Kay Interview History

Interview with Alan Kay on the history (and design) of programming languages, including SmallTalk, SqueakSmallTalk, Java, Lisp, etc. I had the world’s greatest group (Research Lab), and I should have made the world’s two greatest groups. I didn’t realize there are benefits to having real implementers and real users, and there are benefits to starting from scratch every few months. I hired finishers because I’m a good starter and a poor finisher, but it took me a long time to realize that I was interfering with them by trying to improve things. I believe that the only kind of science computing can be is like the science of bridge building. Somebody has to build the bridges and other people have to tear them down and make better theories, and you have to keep on building bridges.