AlanKay
Last edit June 17, 2014Inventor of the SmalltalkLanguage (along with several other collaborators at XeroxParc) and early evangelizer of ObjectOrientedProgramming. It could be argued that he was the primary trigger of the popularity of OOP starting in the mid 1980's, resulting in almost every new language having at least some support OOP in it since.
Recipient of the 2003 TuringAward. (The lecture might have been interesting... might have evoked memories of JohnBackuss famous speech at that venue.)
http://internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3342511 http://www.acm.org/awards/taward.html
Alan tells his own story in the EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk. A founding father for our fledgling discipline? Some pages featuring AlanKay:
June 15th, 2001 - Alan Kay is supposedly leaving Disney this September with 6 other SqueakSmalltalk programmers. http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0106/15.alankay.shtml See OpenCroquet for his new project, a 3D distributed workspace in Squeak. -- I get the impression that his role in Croquet is mostly lending his support and star power to the work of others. (Not at all a trivial contribution, of course.)
There is an interview with AlanKay at http://www.mprove.de/diplom/gui/kay02StillWaiting.html.
Did he actually do anything at Disney? Or was he just a trophy hire? Yes, he did something at Disney. He led the Squeak project. He developed the e-toys and the others developed all the support software. They don't publish many of their e-toys, but you can find the support software at http://www.squeak.org.
See also SqueakSmalltalk and XeroxParc
HeInventedTheTerm "ObjectOriented", and also coined the phrase "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
Alan Kay was as of November 2002 at HP, working on his new project, OpenCroquet. On July 21, 2005, HP reportedly laid off AlanKay along with 14,500 other employees. HireMe ;) He's now an advisor on the OneLaptopPerChild project. DynaBook, ho! He founded the ViewpointsResearchInstitute in 2001, before taking a job at AppliedMinds and then the HP position which was terminated in 2005. He's now (2007) working as head of Viewpoints. ---See:
CategoryPerson SmalltalkRoadmap CategoryHistory
Recipient of the 2003 TuringAward. (The lecture might have been interesting... might have evoked memories of JohnBackuss famous speech at that venue.)
http://internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3342511 http://www.acm.org/awards/taward.html
Alan tells his own story in the EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk. A founding father for our fledgling discipline? Some pages featuring AlanKay:
- AlanKayStories
- AlanKayQuotes
- AlanKayOnMessaging
- AlanKayOnObjects
- AlanKaysDefinitionOfObjectOriented
- AlanKayOnSmalltalk
- AlanKayIsTron
- PersonalDynamicMedia
June 15th, 2001 - Alan Kay is supposedly leaving Disney this September with 6 other SqueakSmalltalk programmers. http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0106/15.alankay.shtml See OpenCroquet for his new project, a 3D distributed workspace in Squeak. -- I get the impression that his role in Croquet is mostly lending his support and star power to the work of others. (Not at all a trivial contribution, of course.)
There is an interview with AlanKay at http://www.mprove.de/diplom/gui/kay02StillWaiting.html.
Did he actually do anything at Disney? Or was he just a trophy hire? Yes, he did something at Disney. He led the Squeak project. He developed the e-toys and the others developed all the support software. They don't publish many of their e-toys, but you can find the support software at http://www.squeak.org.
See also SqueakSmalltalk and XeroxParc
HeInventedTheTerm "ObjectOriented", and also coined the phrase "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
Alan Kay was as of November 2002 at HP, working on his new project, OpenCroquet. On July 21, 2005, HP reportedly laid off AlanKay along with 14,500 other employees. HireMe ;) He's now an advisor on the OneLaptopPerChild project. DynaBook, ho! He founded the ViewpointsResearchInstitute in 2001, before taking a job at AppliedMinds and then the HP position which was terminated in 2005. He's now (2007) working as head of Viewpoints. ---See:
- AlanKay writings
- thesis on ReactiveEngine called the FlexMachine
CategoryPerson SmalltalkRoadmap CategoryHistory