Alan Kay's reading list(shelfjoy.com)
shelfjoy.com
Alan Kay's reading list
http://shelfjoy.com/shelfjoy/alan-kay-from-viewpoints-research-institute-recommends-his-reading-list-for-beginners
43 comments
Had to laugh at the entry
"The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes.
When I first saw this ominous-looking tome on a bookstore shelf my heart sank: I knew that I would never, ever be able to title a book to match this one.
Never mind that the book's contents is likely misguided - the title is simply the ultimate author's dream title. Indeed, to paraphrase Keats, it is "a thing of beauty [and] a joy forever."
"The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes.
When I first saw this ominous-looking tome on a bookstore shelf my heart sank: I knew that I would never, ever be able to title a book to match this one.
Never mind that the book's contents is likely misguided - the title is simply the ultimate author's dream title. Indeed, to paraphrase Keats, it is "a thing of beauty [and] a joy forever."
I enjoyed it, many years ago. And it was good background for Stephenson's Snow Crash. I vaguely recall that its thesis, and Sperry's work on split-brain patients, were out of favor for quite a while. But maybe attracting renewed support?
Westworld (the TV series) is making it popular again.
OP: what is the source of this list?
Hey, here it is http://wiki.c2.com/?AlanKaysReadingList
If I may say so, that is a much less noisy and more readable version of this list.
You are entitled to your opinion. Less noisy, I agree. More readable, I agree on that too. But if you want to take actions on the list, like add them to your reading list or even know a little bit more about the books, it takes quite a few back and forth between Google/Amazon whatever you are using.
And if a lot of people are interested in that (and people are interested), that's a lot of work for a lot of people.
That's what I've tried to reduce here.
And if a lot of people are interested in that (and people are interested), that's a lot of work for a lot of people.
That's what I've tried to reduce here.
The title Alan Kay from Viewpoints Research Institute recommends his reading list for beginners is problematical. The present tense "recommends" implies that Alan Kay was involved in the presentation of this page, either using it as a tool to present his recommendations, or giving his recommendations to an interviewer who created the page. On the contrary, it appears this list was just harvested from other people's (old!) work, without attribution.
I wonder how many people who've "recommended" or "curated" stuff on ShelfJoy have actually... recommended or curated stuff on ShelfJoy? So far I've looked at four pages and only one seems to sort of look like it was created by the person whose name was on the top of the page. The header Book Recommendations from Alex Turnbull from Groove is as ambiguous as the rest, with no author listed and no date, but it includes a "Notes" section for each book. That guy must have written the notes, right?
So the way to tell if any given ShelfJoy page is really written by the person whose name at the top is the presence or absence of those notes next to the book titles? Or is there more to it?
edit: the title Books that Bill Gates reviewed in his notes strikes me as clearer.
I wonder how many people who've "recommended" or "curated" stuff on ShelfJoy have actually... recommended or curated stuff on ShelfJoy? So far I've looked at four pages and only one seems to sort of look like it was created by the person whose name was on the top of the page. The header Book Recommendations from Alex Turnbull from Groove is as ambiguous as the rest, with no author listed and no date, but it includes a "Notes" section for each book. That guy must have written the notes, right?
So the way to tell if any given ShelfJoy page is really written by the person whose name at the top is the presence or absence of those notes next to the book titles? Or is there more to it?
edit: the title Books that Bill Gates reviewed in his notes strikes me as clearer.
Oh! I get the confusion. A lot of recommendations are done by people on email where they send their notes to me. Alex Turnbull was one such example.
However, by putting the title of Alan Kay's reading list as present tense too, I've muddled it up.
You're right. There are tons of lists that are curated from varied sources, some from authors' websites, some from university reading lists etc. Currently, I didn't have a specific section where I could mention the attribution links, but I think it'll be wrong to continue without it.
I'll work on it right away to integrate a section like that. Till that is done, I'll make sure there is grammatical distinction between both.
Thanks a lot. This was valuable.
However, by putting the title of Alan Kay's reading list as present tense too, I've muddled it up.
You're right. There are tons of lists that are curated from varied sources, some from authors' websites, some from university reading lists etc. Currently, I didn't have a specific section where I could mention the attribution links, but I think it'll be wrong to continue without it.
I'll work on it right away to integrate a section like that. Till that is done, I'll make sure there is grammatical distinction between both.
Thanks a lot. This was valuable.
When I look at this list, I see many books that look very interesting. This seems like exactly the way to look at life which I like. However, I can't read books anymore. I just find it impossible to sit down and keep my nose in front of a book for an hour or two. I am so accustomed to reading texts with vast amounts of information density about precisely the things I need or I am interested in (usually, I find such articles on the internet) that I cannot sustain the motivation to read an entire book anymore (not to mention, reading takes intellectual resources which are valuable and assigned to other tasks). Does anyone know that feeling and what do you do about it?
I used to have that feeling. Reading The Shallows[1] made me stop and think about what might be causing it, and forced me to think about what I might do about it.
My solution was to drastically cut back my internet use most of the time I'd have spent online reading books instead. I do what I need to online for work, and I browse HN once a day to keep up with the latest and greatest.
I've found that my attention span returned relatively quickly, and reading books for hours at a time became easy again. The neat thing is that the increased attention span didn't just apply to books. I'm able to get more done at work, too, by staying locked on to whatever I'm doing and not getting distracted.
[1]https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/d...
My solution was to drastically cut back my internet use most of the time I'd have spent online reading books instead. I do what I need to online for work, and I browse HN once a day to keep up with the latest and greatest.
I've found that my attention span returned relatively quickly, and reading books for hours at a time became easy again. The neat thing is that the increased attention span didn't just apply to books. I'm able to get more done at work, too, by staying locked on to whatever I'm doing and not getting distracted.
[1]https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/d...
I turn off my computer and read books to end the day. It's a good way to (1) read a lot of books and (2) get away from the endless stream of information/blue light and improve sleep quality.
Once it becomes a habit, it's easy to maintain. I'd feel weird if I didn't do it at this point.
Once it becomes a habit, it's easy to maintain. I'd feel weird if I didn't do it at this point.
Yes, I've noticed that about myself too. Reading is a high investment / high reward activity, and you have to make an effort to do it. One approach is to set aside a time slot daily where you just read, like the hour before bed time for example. You could also set goals for your self (e.g. read a book a week, a chapter a night, etc.) but that might turn it into a chore and make it less likely that you'll stick with it. It depends on your personality I suppose.
I've also noticed that reading in the office attracts strange looks sometimes. I don't know what to do about that. Reading research papers and text books related to what one is working on should be encouraged in a knowledge profession, yet I almost never see colleagues doing it. I guess if your hands aren't on the keyboard those JIRA tickets won't get closed.
I've also noticed that reading in the office attracts strange looks sometimes. I don't know what to do about that. Reading research papers and text books related to what one is working on should be encouraged in a knowledge profession, yet I almost never see colleagues doing it. I guess if your hands aren't on the keyboard those JIRA tickets won't get closed.
I just use the kindle app on my phone and read on the bus, subway, anytime I'm waiting for something.
So, how important are these books to you if you're not inclined to read them?
I used to read books a lot as a child, but stopped in my teens and have more recently found them more rewarding per unit of time than much of what I find on the internet. I think this started when I realised you can actually buy a copy of The Origin of Species, and so I did. The insights and justifications for evolution presented in that book are much greater than any summary I've ever found online. Things like the imperfection of the fossil record, the importance of one species on the state of an ecosystem, distribution of related species due to geological processes, and so much more. It was a difficult but rewarding book to read, and solidified the importance of reading books for me.
I do however suffer from the same lack of motivation and time to invest as you, so I select my books and allocate time appropriately. Currently I set a goal to read for either half an hour, or one chapter of a book, at least once every couple of days. If the book grabs me I may read more, and I feel I can justify that investment quite often. If it doesn't, I may have to put it aside for another time. I find this habit often draws me toward my next book as I am nearing the end of one, however it needs to be one that feels interesting or important to me. If it's not, then it just won't get read.
I used to read books a lot as a child, but stopped in my teens and have more recently found them more rewarding per unit of time than much of what I find on the internet. I think this started when I realised you can actually buy a copy of The Origin of Species, and so I did. The insights and justifications for evolution presented in that book are much greater than any summary I've ever found online. Things like the imperfection of the fossil record, the importance of one species on the state of an ecosystem, distribution of related species due to geological processes, and so much more. It was a difficult but rewarding book to read, and solidified the importance of reading books for me.
I do however suffer from the same lack of motivation and time to invest as you, so I select my books and allocate time appropriately. Currently I set a goal to read for either half an hour, or one chapter of a book, at least once every couple of days. If the book grabs me I may read more, and I feel I can justify that investment quite often. If it doesn't, I may have to put it aside for another time. I find this habit often draws me toward my next book as I am nearing the end of one, however it needs to be one that feels interesting or important to me. If it's not, then it just won't get read.
In my experience, the trick is to accumulate lists of books, links, people, and other potential interests, etc., and dip into them whenever you aren't preoccupied (in lieu of checking what the Attention Merchents want you to [1]) to get your mind going, not forcing yourself on any particular one, and over time you end up using a lot of free moments to continuously ponder the small bits you glimpsed, until one day it strikes you that one particular book is so obviously worth your time that you devour it. (The process is sort of like an avalanche.)
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Attention-Merchants-Scramble-Inside-H...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Attention-Merchants-Scramble-Inside-H...
One thing that helps me is to keep a pencil handy and act as if I am noting the book for myself or a friend. So I mark important parts, say "see also <other thing>" or write little summaries in the margins. This turns the reading into an active adventure and makes me feel more accomplished for reading. Also the next time I pick it up I can get a quick summary of what I read so far by going through my marked notes to get some momentum to read the new stuff!
I think a lot of people would say yes to that feeling. Reading is a mentally taxing activity and thats exactly why it is required. I'd say books are like a huge piece of argument for a stance and it really pays well to understand things deeply.
There are means of achieving reading without any reading too. Have you tried audio books? I haven't, my mind drifts too much in audio books, but some friends swear by them.
There are means of achieving reading without any reading too. Have you tried audio books? I haven't, my mind drifts too much in audio books, but some friends swear by them.
I love audio books, but it's not fast enough and it's harder to revisit parts that you didn't quite understand or really liked. Also, it depends a lot on the speaker and whether they themselves understand what they are reading. Not to mention, some matters like, say, the description of algorithms and data structures, are really unfit to be presented with audio books. Still, audio books are nice.
I think we all know it much too well.
To me, it's next to impossible to compete with the web.
I vacationed in a wonderful place with no internet access. I read a 600 page book effortlessly and with great joy. It was a remarkable feeling. It has always been hard for me to read long books, even articles. But with broadband in my pocket, it's just too hard
To me, it's next to impossible to compete with the web.
I vacationed in a wonderful place with no internet access. I read a 600 page book effortlessly and with great joy. It was a remarkable feeling. It has always been hard for me to read long books, even articles. But with broadband in my pocket, it's just too hard
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When it comes to famous books that are written in convoluted language (e.g. pretty much all of western philosophy) I usually will read a summary of the book first. I might follow that up with a few youtube videos for additional perspective. Then, if anything covered catches my interest and still needs clarification, I'll crack the book with a specific question in mind. Then I scan the index/search the document to pull up the relevant section and read it. While I'm reading I'll formulate additional questions and repeat the process.
Trying to read convoluted prose front to back without a specific goal, and without having a general idea of what the author is trying to say ahead of time is pretty much a recipe for fail.
On the other hand, I'll happily do a cover to cover on pop-sci book with tight prose that covers experimental findings in plain english.
Trying to read convoluted prose front to back without a specific goal, and without having a general idea of what the author is trying to say ahead of time is pretty much a recipe for fail.
On the other hand, I'll happily do a cover to cover on pop-sci book with tight prose that covers experimental findings in plain english.
Well I read a lot of papers and textbooks, because I am work a lot with distributed systems, outside of the stuff for the masses, a lot of it is actually reading work papers by theorists, and then implementing the concepts, usually haphazardly mashed together with others in a realistic way.
Don't believe me well zookeeper - paxos, riak - dynamo paper, cassandra - dynamo paper, go's CSP - hoares paper, Concurrent ML CSP - Hoares paper, bit torrent - kademlia, dynamo - chord, swim, b+ tree papers the list goes on and on
As for outside of that I used to read a lot of novels and books on philosophy until I was like 18, now I just read really fucked up Seinen Manga.
But like guys who are writing the compilers,servers, concurrency paradigms, etc. that you use have to read a lot even if it's limited to Tech.
Don't believe me well zookeeper - paxos, riak - dynamo paper, cassandra - dynamo paper, go's CSP - hoares paper, Concurrent ML CSP - Hoares paper, bit torrent - kademlia, dynamo - chord, swim, b+ tree papers the list goes on and on
As for outside of that I used to read a lot of novels and books on philosophy until I was like 18, now I just read really fucked up Seinen Manga.
But like guys who are writing the compilers,servers, concurrency paradigms, etc. that you use have to read a lot even if it's limited to Tech.
Like others, I just made a choice to read instead of consume the internet.
I commute on the train, and spent a bunch of time playing with code / reading info. I now mix it up with reading a book. It's been good, I feel it enhances my intellectual energies rather than drains them.
I commute on the train, and spent a bunch of time playing with code / reading info. I now mix it up with reading a book. It's been good, I feel it enhances my intellectual energies rather than drains them.
> Does anyone know that feeling and what do you do about it?
Why do you want to do something about it?
Why do you want to do something about it?
I accidentally find that if my phone is off / off-data, I can read the books that I want, BUT it'll take some time to adjust my mind, a week in my case
I intend to do that from time to time as the to-read list is growing :D
I intend to do that from time to time as the to-read list is growing :D
Oh god yes. I have a stack of GREAT books I want to read but I just don't have that kind of focus anymore. Which makes me really sad because reading books used to be such an important part of my life.
Do you ever read fiction?
I got myself back into reading by purchasing a Kindle and downloading all the discworld novels. I found they worked well as a constant stream of content for me to be engaged in, while still reading through a book.
My Kindle is something I simultaneously love and hate.
The device itself I love. It's so convenient and pleasant to use, I find that I read a lot more books. My only complaint might be that Amazon doesn't care enough about typography.
I hate the device because of DRM. Until fairly recently, stripping the DRM was easy. The new file format (KFX) hasn't been cracked yet and I'm not sure it will be. There are workarounds that involve getting the file in an older format, but then you lose all of the KF8 features.
The device itself I love. It's so convenient and pleasant to use, I find that I read a lot more books. My only complaint might be that Amazon doesn't care enough about typography.
I hate the device because of DRM. Until fairly recently, stripping the DRM was easy. The new file format (KFX) hasn't been cracked yet and I'm not sure it will be. There are workarounds that involve getting the file in an older format, but then you lose all of the KF8 features.
Articles, videos, etc. about Alan Kay show up frequently on HN. This puzzles me. Kay seems like a peripheral figure in the history of CS. I know him mainly for his work on Smalltalk and his iconoclastic views on trends in CS and the tech industry.
Is there a consensus in the CS community that Kay is an important figure who deserves this kind of adulation? Do any of us really understand or care about his achievements? Just asking.
Is there a consensus in the CS community that Kay is an important figure who deserves this kind of adulation? Do any of us really understand or care about his achievements? Just asking.
He's considered important in at least two fairly central, mainstream R&D areas. One, object-oriented programming, where his development of message-passing OO and the design of Smalltalk are an influential line of thought. And two, interactive, iterative development environments, which you can think of as attempts to create a more visual, structured next-gen of the REPL paradigm.
It's true that his specific outputs there (Smalltalk, Squeak, etc.) have never become that mainstream. But: 1) they have become much more widely used than a lot of other research systems (Smalltalk is not just some PhD thesis used by 3 people), and 2) being even "highly influential" on two major areas of development that are mainstream-important is a pretty high bar to clear already.
It's true that his specific outputs there (Smalltalk, Squeak, etc.) have never become that mainstream. But: 1) they have become much more widely used than a lot of other research systems (Smalltalk is not just some PhD thesis used by 3 people), and 2) being even "highly influential" on two major areas of development that are mainstream-important is a pretty high bar to clear already.
I'm not sure I can impartially answer this question, as I'm a great admirer of Alan Kay, and of his concept of OO, but I'll try.
First thing first is that he's a pretty great talker. That ensures anyone will even take the time to listen to what he has to say. But unlike some other great talkers/writers in our field with slavish devotion, Alan Kay was part of pioneering cutting edge research into personal computing. To me he's a breath of fresh air. He's not trying to sell hocus pocus methodologies at software conferences, he's taking a holistic, big picture view of computing and offers some crazy ideas - not all of which I agree with, but most of which have some merit.
His view that computing is an immature field and we don't yet know what we are doing really resonates with me. People too often try and treat it like it's something mature like the electrical engineering or mathematics that underpins it, but it's totally not. We're still in the stage where we are constantly forgetting our history because we're stuck in fashion cycles (ie, people calling Swift innovative because it takes ideas from 1970s programming languages). And he rightly shines a light on that and says hey, we can and should aim to do better. For that I applaud him.
He can be a bit esoteric and out there and what he says is often not directly applicable to everyday programmers. I totally agree. But from thousand foot view strategic perspective he's well worth listening to.
First thing first is that he's a pretty great talker. That ensures anyone will even take the time to listen to what he has to say. But unlike some other great talkers/writers in our field with slavish devotion, Alan Kay was part of pioneering cutting edge research into personal computing. To me he's a breath of fresh air. He's not trying to sell hocus pocus methodologies at software conferences, he's taking a holistic, big picture view of computing and offers some crazy ideas - not all of which I agree with, but most of which have some merit.
His view that computing is an immature field and we don't yet know what we are doing really resonates with me. People too often try and treat it like it's something mature like the electrical engineering or mathematics that underpins it, but it's totally not. We're still in the stage where we are constantly forgetting our history because we're stuck in fashion cycles (ie, people calling Swift innovative because it takes ideas from 1970s programming languages). And he rightly shines a light on that and says hey, we can and should aim to do better. For that I applaud him.
He can be a bit esoteric and out there and what he says is often not directly applicable to everyday programmers. I totally agree. But from thousand foot view strategic perspective he's well worth listening to.
You cannot have a turing award and be a `peripheral figure` in the history of CS. And of the turing award recipients he cares most about the field reminiscent of physicists, mathematicians, geologists, etc. (Last sentence is my opinion.)
You mean if pioneering work on the object-oriented, GUI based VM that inspired Jobs and Gates and popular languages like C++, Java, Ruby, Python, etc and the proliferation of virtual machines counts a peripheral influence.
The Smalltalk VM led to Sun working on the Self VM which led to the JVM.
The Smalltalk VM led to Sun working on the Self VM which led to the JVM.
i have always felt that erlangs message passing model was a more faithful rendition of oo than others. which seems to be inspired from smalltalk...
Yeah totally. I think to go with the biological analogies Kay makes, having them be async objs running code they message-pass to each other makes more sense to me than like methods on classes. In the latter there is still a hierarchical ontology of objects imposed top-down while in the former emergent behavior occurs bottom-up.
"Notes on the Synthesis of Form" (from Kay's reading list on the Squeak website) has some interesting stuff about trying to take graphs of nodes like this and figure out a good hierarchical decomposition given emergent discovery of edges.
Here's something I've been thinking about lately: what if the object edges were organized spatially like a cellular automaton, maybe we can use spatial intuitions then, and if we only allowed linear-typed resources to be passed between them we actually have conserved "flow" of these resources, allowing the use of tools from economics to study the flow. Then it ends up looking like https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/growing-artificial-societies except with programmable monadic behavior at each cell. The linear-typed resources will allow linear proofs locally at each object but the monadic programming of each will allow non-linear emergence.
"Notes on the Synthesis of Form" (from Kay's reading list on the Squeak website) has some interesting stuff about trying to take graphs of nodes like this and figure out a good hierarchical decomposition given emergent discovery of edges.
Here's something I've been thinking about lately: what if the object edges were organized spatially like a cellular automaton, maybe we can use spatial intuitions then, and if we only allowed linear-typed resources to be passed between them we actually have conserved "flow" of these resources, allowing the use of tools from economics to study the flow. Then it ends up looking like https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/growing-artificial-societies except with programmable monadic behavior at each cell. The linear-typed resources will allow linear proofs locally at each object but the monadic programming of each will allow non-linear emergence.
What are some people you think deserve more attention?
(For me, Alan Kay is good publicist for other geniuses. He's talked about Ivan Sutherland, Neil Postman, etc. I was overlooking those people until I started watching his talks on Youtube.)
(For me, Alan Kay is good publicist for other geniuses. He's talked about Ivan Sutherland, Neil Postman, etc. I was overlooking those people until I started watching his talks on Youtube.)
I never knew about the Mother of all Demos before watching him either. Still amazing today.
This is like reducing Doug Engelbart to 'the guy who invented the mouse'.
The citation stated on his Turing award says it best:
"For pioneering many of the ideas at the root of contemporary object-oriented programming languages, leading the team that developed Smalltalk, and for fundamental contributions to personal computing." [1]
[1] http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/kay_3972189.cfm
"For pioneering many of the ideas at the root of contemporary object-oriented programming languages, leading the team that developed Smalltalk, and for fundamental contributions to personal computing." [1]
[1] http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/kay_3972189.cfm
Dozens(!) of comments by Alan on the last one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11803165.