[HN Gopher] Viewpoints Research Institute concluded its operatio...
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Viewpoints Research Institute concluded its operations at the
beginning of 2018
Author : bulka
Score : 50 points
Date : 2021-04-24 17:30 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vpri.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vpri.org)
| beaconstudios wrote:
| For those who are unaware, this was headed by Alan Kay and was
| researching various concepts in human-computer interaction,
| including ideas about the future of coding
| (http://www.vpri.org/work/ifnct.htm).
|
| It's a real shame to see them close up shop, we need that kind of
| research to continue.
| david927 wrote:
| I know of a 10 room mansion in Tuscany, Italy that could house
| a group of future of coding researchers for a year, starting in
| September. It would work out to EUR500/month for room and
| board.
|
| But would anyone be up for it?
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > It would work out to EUR500/month for room and board
|
| EUR500/mo _with_ food per month? That 's suspiciously
| affordable. What's the catch?
|
| (My Red Bull addiction is currently costing me ~$300/mo alone
| right now, seriously)
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Compared with other popular European countries, Italy is
| cheap. But I don't know if it's _that_ cheap.
| david927 wrote:
| The room is EUR200; EUR300 was back-of-the-napkin for
| general meals and it could be low, but when you buy in
| bulk it can be quite inexpensive and Italy is definitely
| cheap.
| toomim wrote:
| I'm interested, and building something like that in Hawaii.
| david927 wrote:
| You're currently building something like this in Hawaii?
| Let's talk! My email is in my profile.
| _1tan wrote:
| here
| ironchief wrote:
| Every org that hired Alan Kay as a fellow was closed
|
| - Apple Advanced Technology Group
|
| - Walt Disney Imagineering Fellows
|
| - HP Advanced Software Research
|
| - VPRI
| [deleted]
| DennisP wrote:
| Dang. I used to look forward to the 20KLOC OS/GUI/IDE. I guess
| they never really achieved that.
|
| Maybe it was just time for Alan Kay to retire.
| chillpenguin wrote:
| Is it true that they never achieved it? I thought they
| basically did. You can see the system in action in various
| talks by Alan Kay.
| chubot wrote:
| I would like to see it too, and I even referred to it in a
| comment a few days ago. Did they release the code or just
| describe it in papers and talks?
|
| A cursory look at the website and Googling says the latter,
| which is a shame. The research would be more impactful with
| source code. There's no reason not to release the source, and
| if you fail to do so, you can't really complain if
| practitioners don't pick up those techniques :)
|
| I think OMeta was related and that is released, but IMO it's
| not that practical.
|
| -----
|
| Thread from 5 years ago that is not that flattering of their
| work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11686325
|
| Oh it actually points to some more source:
| https://github.com/damelang/nile
|
| Although I think it's easy to pick on different parts;
| there's definitely value to having a holistic system and
| design. But it would be better if we could see all of it
| instead of just the parts
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| They did basically achieve it. There's one missing component
| though: the kernel. One big reason kernels have to be
| gigantic nowadays is the stupidly high diversity of hardware
| interfaces. Every USB device, every graphics card, network
| card, printer... has its own peculiar way of talking to the
| rest of the computer, and that shorcoming has to be
| compensated by bolting a driver on top. _For each OS_.
|
| See Casey Muratory on the 30 million lines problem:
| https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0031
|
| Solve that, and _then_ ideas from VPRI can shine.
| wrycoder wrote:
| This group blew up very suddenly, leaving a lot of unfinished
| work. They didn't even properly release the work they had done
| on GitHub or someplace similar. It's just not like Alan Kay to
| do that.
|
| https://awarth.blogspot.com/
|
| Note that Warth's name is missing from the 2012 STEPS report.
|
| Piumarta went to Japan.
|
| There's something we don't know.
|
| For a bit of follow-on, there is Alex Warth's homepage:
|
| http://www.tinlizzie.org/~awarth/
| david927 wrote:
| HARC also seemed to end suddenly. I was never able to get any
| details on why.
| e12e wrote:
| I had a brief look at Alan Kay's most recent comments here -
| but couldn't find much about VPRI in particular - I was
| hoping maybe there'd been some post mortem that I'd missed -
| but doesn't appear so:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=alankay
| cztomsik wrote:
| yeah OMeta - interesting idea thanks for noting this, I was
| unaware (busy with other things lately)
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2021-04-24 23:00 UTC)