It is insufficient to sustain Kay's claim (with respect to some of my 
interface work) that everything had been "done better 25 years ago" to 
merely name a number of MIT projects. What details were better? Where, 
in Kay's opinion, did my work fail to be an excellent solution to the 
problems at hand? How would Negropont e's interface be more apt? Without
some specificity, Kay's remarks seem carping. This impression is 
reinforced by his choice of phrasing. For example, he says, "If Raskin 
would ever read the literature..." rather than something along the lines
of, "it is not clear from his book whether Raskin was aware of..." . In 
fact, Kay did not check with me as to what I had or had not read, making
his remark pure speculation and, it seems to me, unworthy of such a 
distinguished worker in the field.

I would be interested in engaging in a reasoned dialog on the topic.

Jef Raskin