Interview with Alan Kay

Abstract

The legendary Alan Kay and Roy E. Disney have graciously appeared on camera for interviews and joined the ACM Computers in Entertainment magazine's editorial board. Alan and Roy are two of the nicest people to talk to and work with. Alan talked about soft fun versus hard fun, and his research on Squeak for enhancing and amplifying learning in children's education. Roy told us about educators versus entertainers, and his views on traditional and CGI animations. The video clips of the interviews are available at http://www.acm.org/pubs/cie/oct2003/index.htmlAlan Kay, HP Fellow and President of Viewpoints Research Institute, is best known for the idea of personal computing the conception of the intimate laptop computer, and the inventions of the now ubiquitous overlapping-window interface and modern object-oriented programming. His deep interests in children and education were the catalyst for these ideas, and they continue to be a major source of inspiration. In the past, Alan has been a Xerox Fellow, Chief Scientist of Atari, Apple Fellow, and Disney Fellow. More information is available at http://www.squeakland.org/community/biography/alanbio.html and http://www.viewpointsresearch.org/alan.html