HP Fires Father of OOP

Ye' old general discussion board. Basically, for everything that isn't covered elsewhere. Come here to shoot the breeze, shoot your mouth off, or whatever suits your fancy.
This forum is not for asking programming related questions.

Moderator: General Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
patrikG
DevNet Master
Posts: 4235
Joined: Thu Aug 15, 2002 5:53 am
Location: Sussex, UK

HP Fires Father of OOP

Post by patrikG »

Slashdot wrote:"Hewlett-Packard has disbanded its Advanced Software Research team and sent its leader, reknowned programmer Alan Kay, packing. From today's Good Morning Silicon Valley: 'HP is bidding adieu to legendary Silicon Valley technologist Alan Kay. A founder of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, Kay -- who once said, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it" -- was instrumental in the development of the windowing GUI and modern object-oriented programming. He envisioned a laptop computer long before the first ones rolled out and his Smalltalk programming language was a predecessor to Sun Microsystems' Java. Hard to believe HP's cutting him loose.' Maybe Apple will hire him."
Source: http://developers.slashdot.org/article. ... 22/0018240
User avatar
shiznatix
DevNet Master
Posts: 2745
Joined: Tue Dec 28, 2004 5:57 pm
Location: Tallinn, Estonia
Contact:

Post by shiznatix »

uhhh why would you fire a guy like that? wouldnt people be begging for him to work for their company?
User avatar
pickle
Briney Mod
Posts: 6445
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 6:11 pm
Location: 53.01N x 112.48W
Contact:

Re: HP Fires Father of OOP

Post by pickle »

Slashdot wrote:"Maybe Apple will hire him."
That..... would.... be..... AWESOME!!
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
User avatar
wwwapu
Forum Contributor
Posts: 197
Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2004 11:57 am
Location: Turku, Finland

Post by wwwapu »

It's not about one man, but cutting heavily on research. I'm sure Mr Kay has no difficulties of finding a new and even better job.
We are one of only a handful of systems companies left on the planet that invests in significant R&D," he said. "My goal is for HP to be the R&D leader in the areas strategic to HP and our customers. I want them to think of HP as a company that's driving useful innovation and bringing it to market in the most efficient way possible to help them solve problems or improve their lives."
Possibly Alan Kays team did not "drive useful innovation" or "bring it to market in efficient way" :roll: .Reserch is research and in my opinion there should allow "unuseful" research in order to innovate something unique.

Read Mark Hurd
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/featu ... B3&mtxl=L1
User avatar
Burrito
Spockulator
Posts: 4715
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2004 8:15 pm
Location: Eden, Utah

Post by Burrito »

wwwapu wrote:I'm sure Mr Kay has no difficulties of finding a new and even better job.
I vote we petition to hire him as devnet's OOP consultant.

8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D
User avatar
patrikG
DevNet Master
Posts: 4235
Joined: Thu Aug 15, 2002 5:53 am
Location: Sussex, UK

Post by patrikG »

Burrito wrote:
wwwapu wrote:I'm sure Mr Kay has no difficulties of finding a new and even better job.
I vote we petition to hire him as devnet's OOP consultant.
I believe that position has been filled for quite a while by McG :)
User avatar
Burrito
Spockulator
Posts: 4715
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2004 8:15 pm
Location: Eden, Utah

Post by Burrito »

can't hurt to double the forces, plus I'm sure mr Kay would like to broaden his knowledge and learn some new things and McG is just the man to teach him :wink:
d3ad1ysp0rk
Forum Donator
Posts: 1661
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2003 8:31 pm
Location: Maine, USA

Post by d3ad1ysp0rk »

Burrito wrote:
wwwapu wrote:I'm sure Mr Kay has no difficulties of finding a new and even better job.
I vote we petition to hire him as devnet's OOP consultant.

8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D 8O :D
Yea, with that extra $500,000 a year devnet gets in donations, right? ;)
User avatar
patrikG
DevNet Master
Posts: 4235
Joined: Thu Aug 15, 2002 5:53 am
Location: Sussex, UK

Post by patrikG »

That's just the change. Jason is driving around these lorries filled with these huge cheques you see on pictures. So many zeros on there that they have to be oversized. What I am particularly proud of is that despite all the riches the mods and admins have amassed, we're still behaving as if all this hadn't happened. Amazing, come to think of it... ;)
User avatar
m3mn0n
PHP Evangelist
Posts: 3548
Joined: Tue Aug 13, 2002 3:35 pm
Location: Calgary, Canada

Post by m3mn0n »

Well he doesn't have to worry about getting EI cheques.

He'll be hired at another big tech company soon.
Post Reply