Lisp isn't a language, it's a building material.
Interpretation
Lisp serves as a foundational tool for building software rather than just a conventional programming language.
Alan Kay's quote highlights the idea that Lisp, a programming language, is not merely a tool for coding, but rather a versatile framework that allows developers to construct complex systems. By likening it to building materials, Kay emphasizes its potential for creativity and innovation in software development, suggesting that programmers can use Lisp to create structures and solutions much like an architect uses bricks and mortar.
In practice
During a tech conference, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of using robust programming languages for development.
The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.
Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
The greatest single programming language ever designed
By the time I got to school, I had already read a couple hundred books. I knew in the first grade that they were lying to me because I had already been exposed to other points of view. School is basically about one point of view -- the one the teacher has or the textbooks have. They don't like the idea of having different points of view, so it was a battle. Of course I would pipe up with my five-year-old voice.
Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.
If you're not failing 90% of the time, then you're probably not working on sufficiently challenging problems.
I don't subscribe to the view some people have in the industry that you should purposefully design products that do not last that long. I don't think it is good for anyone.
I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years.
Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence.
The outside perception and inside perception of Microsoft are so different. The view of Microsoft inside Microsoft is always kind of an underdog thing.
There is a demon in technology. It was put there by man and man will have to exorcise it before technological civilization can achieve the eighteenth-century ideal of humane civilized life.
That has always been the objective of Apple: to do things that really enrich people's lives. That you look back on and you wonder, 'How did I live without this?'
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