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Alan Kay at OOPSLA 1997 - The computer revolution hasnt happened yet

Jeff Gonis · talk · Watch on YouTube

Software architecture & designTech pioneers & interviewsGUI, HCI & interface history

What it is

Alan Kay's 1997 OOPSLA keynote, preserved on YouTube after being lost from Google Video. He discusses what object orientation was meant to be, messaging, system design, and the state of computing practice.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Treated as a foundational talk, cited constantly for Kay's views on object-oriented programming and for rethinking software practice.

  • 6 people recommended it
  • 5 different months
  • 2 strong recommendations
  • first 2013, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “I encourage all developers to watch that talk and do some thinking about the current state of our practice”

    Kay's keynote on what a browser should be and the state of practice

    jgon, 2014-01 · Strong recommendation · in “WebKit.js: Pure JavaScript Port of WebKit”

  2. “Most Alan Kay's presentations I've seen were worth watching. Tons of great ideas in each.”

    Famous Kay talk full of great ideas about reasoning about systems

    gambler, 2019-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Correctness – A paradigm for sustainable software development”

  3. “I recently (re)discovered Alan Kay's 1997 OOPSLA talk”

    Kay's talk to programmers on Alto, Dynabook and children using the tech

    e12e, 2016-08 · Recommendation · in “Restoring Y Combinator's Xerox Alto, day 4: What's running on the system”

  4. “See his OOPSLA talk "The computer revolution hasn't happened yet”

    Kay on computers as metatools augmenting cognition, unlike today's devices

    infinite8s, 2016-08 · Recommendation · in “Alan Kay on AI, Apple and Future”

  5. “Alan Kay has put a ton of thought into this issue [1].”

    Kay's vision of small, understandable systems a single person can grasp

    chongli, 2022-05 · Recommendation · in “460M Indian Internet Users Are Now on IPv6”

  6. “The Computer Revolution hasn't happened yet , OOPSLA 1997 keynote”

    Kay's keynote on messaging and system design, listed among key readings

    mpweiher, 2024-03 · Recommendation · in “Alan Kay's talk at UCLA – Feb 2024 [video]”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: alan kay, smalltalk, oop, oopsla, system design

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