A great Alan Kay quote

[Arthur]

On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 21:23:06 +0100, Francis Girard
<francis.girard at free.fr> wrote:
>
>I love him.

I don't.
>
>It's also interesting to see GUIs with windows, mouse (etc.), which apparently 
>find their origin in is mind, probably comes from the desire to introduce 
>computers to children.


Alfred Bork, now 
Professor Emeritus
Information and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine 92697

had written an article in 1980 called  

"Interactive Learning" which began

"We are at the onset of a major revolution in education, a revolution
unparalleled since the invention of the printing press. The computer
will be the instrument of this revolution."

In 2000 he published:

"Interactive Learning: Twenty Years Later"

looking back on his orignal article and its optimistic predictions and
admitting "I was not a very good prophet"

What went wrong?

Among other things he points (probably using a pointing device) at the
pointing device

"""
Another is the rise of the mouse as a computer device. People had the
peculiar idea that one could deal with the world of learning purely by
pointing.

"""
The articles can be found here:

http://www.citejournal.org/vol2/iss4/seminal.cfm 

One does not need to agree or disagree, it seems to me about this or
that point on interface, or influence, or anything else. What one does
need to do is separate hope from actuality, and approach the entire
subject area with some sense of what is at stake, and with some true
sense of the complexity of the issues, in such a  way that at this
stage of the game the only authentic stance is one of humility,

Kay fails the humility test, dramatically. IMO.

Art