Notes by Andy Hertzfeld on Alan Kay's talk at Creative Think seminar, July 1982

Re:Notes by Andy Hertzfeld on Alan Kay's talk at Creative Th... by AceJohnny2 on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @06:00PM (#23981137)

> Systems programmers are high priests of a low cult

Ouch :p

Part of the issue is that "systems" are no longer designed holistically [1], and instead follow Conway's Law [2], which leads subcomponents to be designed in isolation and then combined as best as possible.

Systems programmers build the foundation of a software platform, without a clear vision of the end goal. They focus on the intricate details of the platform, but pay little attention to how this fits in the final product.

[1] maybe only at Apple, inheritors of Kay's approach?

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

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Re:Notes by Andy Hertzfeld on Alan Kay's talk at Creative Th... by justin66 on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:37AM (#23985232)

> Part of the issue is that "systems" are no longer designed holistically

The "high priests" line is a Bob Barton quote, which I believe probably dates back to the mid-sixties.

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Re:Notes by Andy Hertzfeld on Alan Kay's talk at Creative Th... by AceJohnny2 on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:13PM (#23992165)

Thanks! I did not know that. Do you know what he meant in context?

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Re:Notes by Andy Hertzfeld on Alan Kay's talk at Creative Th... by justin66 on Thursday July 30, 2020 @08:07AM (#23997120)

I'm not comfortable offering some kind of deep interpretation of my own, but it's been mentioned jokingly by James Mickens and jokingly but seriously by Alan Kay, whose speeches are all worth watching. I thought it was interesting, based on Hertzfeld's notes, that Kay has been quoting Barton on this for such a long time.

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