Alan Kay Quotes

Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.

Defining OO as based on the use of class hierarchies and virtual functions is also practical in that it provides some guidance as to where OO is likely to be successful.

Another trick in software is to avoid rewriting the software by using a piece that's already been written, so called component approach which the latest term for this in the most advanced form is what's called Object Oriented Programming.

Certainly not every good program is object-oriented, and not every object-oriented program is good.

Nevertheless, I consider OOP as an aspect of programming in the large; that is, as an aspect that logically follows programming in the small and requires sound knowledge of procedural programming.

Object-oriented programming as it emerged in Simula 67 allows software structure to be based on real-world structures, and gives programmers a powerful way to simplify the design and construction of complex programs.

Object-oriented design is the roman numerals of computing.

Java and C++ make you think that the new ideas are like the old ones. Java is the most distressing thing to hit computing since MS-DOS.

I am a programmer.

I started programming Apples in seventh grade.

One of the things that Java is good at is giving you this homogeneous view of a reality that's usually very heterogeneous.

Learning to program has no more to do with designing interactive software than learning to touch type has to do with writing poetry

Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.

I used to be enamored of object-oriented programming. I'm now finding myself leaning toward believing that it is a plot designed to destroy joy.

Java is C++ without the guns, clubs and knives.

I majored in Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley and worked as a software developer for a couple of years. Then I taught high school computer science for over a decade and a half in Oakland, California.

After graduating in 1973 I went into the programming field.

A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.

Our ultimate goal is extensible programming (EP). By this, we mean the construction of hierarchies of modules, each module adding new functionality to the system.

I don't program or code or anything like that.

I'm kind of a retired software engineer. I don't write code anymore.

The short version is I'm just a total Apple fanboy. I started programming Apples in seventh grade.

At MIT, mostly what I did was documentation. I sort of read things. Wrote some descriptions of various aspects of the file system. Did not really do very much programming at all. At least on Multics.

I was a programmer.

I worked as a programmer for 16 years.