Let's see. Where to start. I said "still". I said why is Alan Kay "still"
relevant. And, yes, it means I have a beef with this pioneer. But as I say
in my blog, let's back up.

It has been acknowledged that he is a pioneer, and has done things ... in
the past. That¹s why I used the word "still" to qualify my question. Mac's,
Turing award, object-oriented language pioneering. In the past. Why is he
still relevant?

A sense a whole lot of hero worship here, people. That's not good for
anything. Alan Kay says all the time that he wants things to be made
obsolete, so that they can be reinvented. Everything except himself, of
course. You will never exceed your masters if you revere them too much.
There is a time for putting  them aside and doing YOUR thing. As they say in
the Japanese martial arts: enter form; exit form. Learn, and then go
further.

I'll say the two things (that I know about) that make him relevant, and why
he gets on my nerves.

I want to see WYSIwiki. I glimpse the vast potential of Etoys. I want the
Smalltalk Flash plug-in. I want the 3D virtual reality demo that Kay did
(and you can see in Google Video) available to everyone, so that World Of
Warcraft could be written in Smalltalk.

I also think Kay is useful in licensing. He has thawed up the Apple/Squeak
license problem. I want a Linux distro to carry Squeak AROUND THE WORLD.

What annoys me is his ability to be the Pied Piper nobody else can follow.
Here is a guy who goes around the world making killer demonstrations to
audiences. If somebody in the audience says "I want to do that too", then
they have a huge problem on their hands. Etoys is the perfect example. Go to
Google Video, look up Smalltalk or Squeak and find the American teacher, who
made three videos of his use of Etoys, and  how he had to abandon it. I
wrote about it in my blog.

The Smalltalk/Squeak world has a HUGE documentation and support problem. You
don't think so because YOU HAVE DRUNK THE KOOL-AID. Can you show me stats of
people who tried to entered this world and were deterred by a variety of
obstacles?

If you want to lionize someone, then lionize Adele Goldberg. She wrote the
books, people. Not as flashy or aggressive a personality as Alan Kay. But
Dan Ingalls says she was the only documenter of the group. A song without a
song sheet is a rumour. She's done more for the continuance of Smalltalk
than Alan Kay for all his presentations. To my knowledge Alan Kay has never
written a book in his life. Great talker, though.

Chris Cunnington
Toronto

http://www.brokentomb.com

P.S.: I may not be able to answer anything until Monday. I'm off to Toronto
Trek 20. Mr. Sulu is here in Tdot!