Alan Kay has had what, by anybody's standards, would have to be called a good year. He recently bagged the Draper and Kyoto Prizes, and is poised to deliver his Turing Award lecture tomorrow night. His praises have been duly and extensively sung elsewhere; let it suffice to say that he has more than ample laurels upon which to rest, should he have so desired.
At the frightful risk of appearing to indulge in "lèse-majesté", I must sheepishly concede that I have, on a few occasions, described Kay as the Orson Welles of Object-Oriented Programming. I'm not completely sure why this comparision came to mind, but genius, pure preternatural genius, was surely a factor. And, like Welles, Kay's best-known, most monumental achievements came at a remarkably young age. Then too, one can, if one squints just the right way, discern a certain pyhsical resemblance between the two.
Unlike Welles, Kay has not taken the luxury of resting his laurels until both had gone to seed. Instead, there's a good chance that he'll be demonstrating Croquet, a remarkably collaborative enviroment that foreshadows what can be done with the coming cornicopia of cycles, bandwidth, and graphical power.
It usually takes a few days to discern OOPSLA's Zeitgeist, if any, but this time its evident already that the buzz junkies will have more than the usual methodone to amuse them...
--BF, who valiantly resisted the tempation to entitle this posting "Citizen Kay"...
Posted by foote at October 24, 2004 05:39 PM