Always worth seeing what Kay has to say. The slashdot thread has its moments as well.
How Heraclitus would Design a Programming Language. CowboyRobot writes “Developer of Smalltalk Alan Kay has an interview on ACM Queue
where he describes the history of computing and his approach to
designing languages. Kay has an impressive resume (PARC, ARPAnet,
Atari, Apple, Alan Turing Award winner) and has an endless supply of
memorable quotes: 'Perl is another example of filling a tiny,
short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term,'
'Once you have something that grows faster than education grows, you’re
always going to get a pop culture,' 'most undergraduate degrees in
computer science these days are basically Java vocational training,'
'All creativity is an extended form of a joke,' and 'nobody really
knows how to design a good language.'” [Slashdot:]
where he describes the history of computing and his approach to
designing languages. Kay has an impressive resume (PARC, ARPAnet,
Atari, Apple, Alan Turing Award winner) and has an endless supply of
memorable quotes: 'Perl is another example of filling a tiny,
short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term,'
'Once you have something that grows faster than education grows, you’re
always going to get a pop culture,' 'most undergraduate degrees in
computer science these days are basically Java vocational training,'
'All creativity is an extended form of a joke,' and 'nobody really
knows how to design a good language.'” [Slashdot:]