josteinkon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Rich Hickey Fanclub”
Completely unrelated: Alan Kay - the power of simplicity link to this video Easily over of the most thought provoking presentations I have seen recently.
0:00 / 0:00
#alankay#softwaredesign#xeroxparc
Alan Kay, 2015: Power of Simplicity
Kenneth Friedman
771 subscribers • 3 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 7 people: 6 on Hacker News and 1 on Lobsters.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2016 to 2025.
- Presented by Alan Kay, pioneer of personal computing and OOP
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.
144K views11 years ago7 recommendations
Software designHistory and cultureSimplicity and complexitySoftware architectureHistory of computing
Alan Kay argues that software systems become simpler by building on more sophisticated fundamental building blocks and discusses Xerox PARC's research philosophy.
One of my all time favorite talks of AKay's, given in 2015. Not my own video, though it hasn't been on YouTube before. Original location here: global.sap.com/campaign/na/usa/CRM-XU15-INT-STILP/index.htmlWhy it's here
7 people recommend this, 1 disputes itWhat people say. Recommended as a highly thought-provoking talk by Alan Kay on software design, abstractions, and simplicity.
vhiremath4on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Alan Kay's talk at UCLA – Feb 2024 [video]”
Highly recommend his talk on the power of simplicity. This was one of those lightbulb moments for me when I was a younger programmer: link to this video
josteinkon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today”
…time none the less (but again, you should never constrain yourself to that little, or else you will stress towards performing, instead of thinking properly about the problems needing to be solved). Alan: Hope I didn't butcher your message too much :) 1 I think it might be this one, but I honestly haven't checked. See it anyway. It's a good talk. link to this video…
_piuson Hacker News • Recommends
On “Alan Kay at Startup School [video]”
I've seen him give this great talk before, but IMO the delivery this time feels rushed and a bit disjointed. That said, the last few minutes summarize his powerful "Gretzky Game" idea so succinctly that they're worth the price of admission alone. I would recommend watching the last 18 seconds of this version (starting at link ), internalizing the Gretzky Game slide on the screen, backing it up and watching the fuller explanation in the preceding ~3 minutes (starting at 54:18, link ), and then finally watching a different, more expansive version of the talk like this one, given at Qualcomm: link to this video . Oddly specific advice, I know, but hopefully helpful to somebody.
a_don Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: What is your favourite tech talk?”
Bret Victor - Inventing on principle link Alan Kay - Power of Simplicity link to this video Steve Jobs - Marketing (unveiling Think Different) link Robert Cialdini - On Influence link Peter Thiel - On Zero to One (Notes on Starts Ups or How to Build the Future) link Naval Ravikant on Reading, Happiness, Systems for Decision Making, Habits, Honesty and More (Farnam Street podcast) link Josh Wolfe - On "This is who you are up against" podcast link Richard Feynman - Fun to Imagine link Paul Graham - Startup school (2008) link James Burke - Connections (BBC documentary) <No link> Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of the Atom (BBC) link Elon Musk's 2003 Stanford University Entrepreneurial Tho…
fovcon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Simple Software Manifesto”
Not sure which generation you're in and which generation you'd (relatively) consider Alan Key in, but here is a much more principled approach to what the OP is trying to do: link to this video The TLDW is that Kay thinks we haven't discovered all the fundamental rules of computing, a la Maxwells Equations for physics. If you are able to figure these out, you can substantially cut down your accidental complexity. FWIW, my unscientific view is that achieving simplicity is really hard and doesn't scale people-wise. Instead of C99 without a bunch of stuff, I'd probably use Scheme to create very dense (lots of bespoke abstractions and idioms) but simple software. That approach works reasonably well, but try…
mablopouleon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Don MacKinnon: Why Simplicity Beats Cleverness in Software Design [audio]”
…almost-but-not-quite, and many operation done around to handle data can be greatly simplified (if not avoided altogether) by changing the underlying data-structure. (Also, Alan Kay apparently did another talk called "Is it really complex, or did we just make it complicated"2 that seems pertinent to the thread, though I haven't watch it yet) 1 link to this video 2 link…
leocon Hacker News • Disputes
On “Alan Kay at Startup School [video]”
Now this right here link to this video is the problem: if you follow the idea of computers as virtualisers where it leads you do not , in the general case, end up with the flat backplane talked about from 23:15 and shown in the accompanying slide. (Actually, this is in turn probably just a symptom of another, more general problem.)
leocon Hacker News • Disputes
On “Soup – Alan Kay on Objects”
Reposting my comment from discussion link with a fixed YouTube link: > Now this right here link to this video is the problem: if you follow the idea of computers as virtualisers where it leads you do not , in the general case, end up with the flat backplane talked about from 23:15 and shown in the accompanying slide. (Actually, this is in turn probably just a symptom of another, more general problem.)
pjmlpon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Alan Kay on re-creating Xerox PARC's design magic at CDG”
Check this video running in another thread. This a known Alan Kay talk, he did it already a few times. link to this video As an example of the type of research being done, you must be willing to build something that will be considered commodity in 15 years time at today's price. You won't get there with basic income.
alayneon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Ask HN: Is there evidence regarding PG's theory about powerful languages?”
Alan Kay has a more generalized idea about building up abstractions that I like better. I think he mentioned it in this video link to this video I, like many in this thread, think that good people are more important than a particular programming language.
MichaelMoser123on Hacker News • Mentions
On “Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today”
well, in this talk it sounds like you do advocate tool building - isn't tool building a way to try elliptic orbits instead of the circular ones ? link to this video 'Power of simplicity'
romanivon Hacker News • Mentions
On “A plan to rescue the Web from the Internet”
Having watched nearly every talk/interview of Kay I could find on YouTube (which includes the OOPSLA keynote) and having read some of his writings I think I have a reasonably good understanding of what he is advocating for. Here is Kay talking about Internet's resilience in a bit more detail: link to this video >His position is strongly aligned with the "mechanism, not policy" philosophy. I don't see how this opposes or contradicts any of what I wrote above.
bchon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Computer Software (1984)”
…the surface seems antithetical. Picking (and committing-to) a (correct) abstraction can be tricky. Also, these “axioms” are often made true by useless qualifiers like “unnecessary” complexity, or even “complexity”. If it’s required , it’s not “complexity”, but a necessary implementation detail. Pick in good faith, keep a loose grip, have fun. 0 link to this video…
AlchemistCampon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Running servers and services well is not trivial (2018)”
On the other hand Alan Kay has made powerful arguments that systems can be made much simpler if only their building blocks were slightly less simple! It's a tough question. link to this video