[Squeakland] Re: Squeakland Digest, Vol 55, Issue 32

[John Maxwell]

On 26-Nov-07, at 8:17 AM, Alan Kay wrote:

> I think the main thing in teaching "number" is...

...and so follows yet another amazingly eloquent, erudite lesson on  
the topic of the day, the likes of which we've seen for years on this  
mailing list and others. OK, I thought this most recent was a  
particularly good one.

As somebody who has spent considerable time trying to collect and  
interpret the works of Alan Kay, and who, on reading almost every one  
of these little e-mails, finds that here again is yet another gem,  
another insight, that I've missed... I find myself increasingly  
asking myself,

When is Alan Kay going to publish a book?

Seriously, considering the depth and (perhaps more crucially) breadth  
of accumulated thinking that is evident in Kay's various talks,  
lectures, the odd article, and these e-mails, it truly is shame that  
our primary means of accessing this body of thought is the laborious  
work of sifting through the hundreds of fragments laid down over the  
years.

Alan, I appeal to you and to the spirit of scholarship; your work is  
not done justice by the occasional articles and talks that appear,  
nor by these 'lessons' (and I mean that in the best possible sense)  
that appear sporadically on the mailing lists. Surely you've  
considered collecting it... I think the value of such a thing would  
be enormous.

Respectfully and sincerely(!),



  - John Maxwell
    http://thinkubator.ccsp.sfu.ca/Dynabook
    jmax at sfu.ca