THE VIDEO SHELF · alan kay computing ideas
Alan Kay: Doing with Images Makes Symbols (Full Version)
A full upload of Alan Kay's 1987 talk, with demos of several Smalltalk-era software systems and ideas about visual, kinesthetic and symbolic reasoning. It includes a Smalltalk program written by a 12-year-old and footage of the Rand tablet.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN recommends it as a favourite tech talk full of good ideas from forgotten 1980s software, worth watching in full.
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
- alan kay computing ideas
- Format
- talk
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 8
- HN mentions in dataset
- 10
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2016–2023
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.
Doing with Images Makes Symbols, Alan Kay. [VIDEO] The title says it all. It's really a summary of several software systems with good ideas abound. I believe all the software is 80s or prior. Edit: I also forgot to mention some psychology and math.
cconroy on Hacker News · 2016-10
In Ask HN: What's your favorite tech talk?I'm already trying hard not to fall into full alankayism [1] and this only reinforces my view. Jobs said that many people in companies are clueless... [1] for people that never watched his talk where he demonstrates how pretty old and forgotten software can be, …
agumonkey on Hacker News · 2017-08
In Concrete-free washing machines are lighter to transport, just as good in a spin> Visualizations are great for shared intuition, but it should only be used at the end of a long personal struggle which should involve hours upon hours of undistracted effort, preferably involving something tactile like a pen and pencil. There is a classic Alan Kay …
scroot on Hacker News · 2018-05
In Media for Thinking the Unthinkable (2013)
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.