News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books programmers should read?’. Parent comment

Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by neilv on Friday August 09, 2019 @10:46AM (#20654837)
It doesn't even have to be "from their prime" (and I don't like to encourage that ageism concept, now that we have hiring managers fresh out of school). I'm comfortable asserting that, at any age, they will probably be high-value, having enough background to have insights and see connections that others cannot yet, now with a lot of general wisdom besides. See Danny Hillis's writeup on Feynman at Thinking Machines. You'd just need to offer them a compelling work situation, with problems that interest them.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by GuiA on Friday August 09, 2019 @01:16PM (#20656360)
> You'd just need to offer them a compelling work situation, with problems that interest them.

If you want to attract those kind of people and have them do their best work, then part of the “compelling work situation is to let them pursue their own problems.

Alan Kay:

” I don’t run CDG, I visit it. [Xerox PARC founder Robert] Taylor didn’t want to hire anyone who needed to be managed. That’s not the way it works. I have people on my list who are already moving in great directions, according to their own inner visions. I didn’t have to explain to these people what they would be working on, because they already are. Bret Victor has already hired four people that I didn’t know about. I wanted people to fund, not manage.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/3046437/5-steps-to-recreate-xero...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by jimbokun on Friday August 09, 2019 @12:57PM (#20656168)
Heh, true, I just added "from their prime" because I know not all of them are still alive so would not add much to a development team in their current state.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by yitianjian on Friday August 09, 2019 @01:25PM (#20656442)
You never know, something like "The Hand of Alan Turing" might be a fairly decent draw for hiring
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by davidw on Friday August 09, 2019 @04:00PM (#20657791)
I'm totally picturing The Hand treated like a relic in some Italian church, along these lines:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/st-anthonys-tongue

[ Parent | on HN ]