THE VIDEO SHELF · software simplicity
Alan Kay, 2015: Power of Simplicity
Alan Kay's 2015 talk on the power of simplicity, arguing that systems become simpler by building on more sophisticated fundamental building blocks and that big research horizons drove invention at Xerox PARC. It ranges across computing, tools and scaling software.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN repeatedly cites it as a thought-provoking talk on reducing software complexity and on the state of computing research.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Kenneth Friedman
- Topic
- software simplicity
- Format
- talk
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 6
- HN mentions in dataset
- 19
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2015–2025
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
Completely unrelated: Alan Kay - the power of simplicity [VIDEO] Easily over of the most thought provoking presentations I have seen recently.
josteink on Hacker News · 2016-02
In Rich Hickey FanclubHighly recommend his talk on the power of simplicity. This was one of those lightbulb moments for me when I was a younger programmer: [VIDEO]
vhiremath4 on Hacker News · 2024-03
In Alan Kay's talk at UCLA – Feb 2024 [video]I'm not Alan, but I saw one of his talks[1] about how they did invent all those things we're using now, which you are very much referring to. What he said was important was to have a big horizon, at least 10 years. Anything less …
josteink on Hacker News · 2016-06
In Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.
