kay-inventing-the-future
Alan Kay Style Guide
Overview
Alan Kay is a computer scientist who invented Smalltalk, coined the term "object-oriented programming," conceived the Dynabook (decades before the iPad), and led the Xerox PARC team that created the modern GUI. He won the Turing Award in 2003. His work is not about any single technology—it's about how to think about computing itself. Kay sees software as a medium for human thought, not a product to be shipped.
Core Philosophy
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
"People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."
"I invented the term 'object-oriented,' and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind."
Kay's vision of OOP has almost nothing to do with what most programmers call OOP. His objects are not bags of data with methods. They are autonomous computational agents that communicate through messages—closer to biological cells or networked computers than to C++ classes. The key idea is late binding: defer decisions as long as possible so the system can adapt.
Design Principles
- Objects Are Computers in Miniature: Each object is a self-contained, autonomous entity with its own state and behavior. Objects communicate exclusively through messages. They do not reach into each other's internals.