Today HP fired Alan Kay, you might not know Alan but he can be credited with the reason we have a mouse, a GUI, Object Oriented Programming Languages, laptop computers, and much more… This has to be the worst decision ever made by HP/Compaq, the second worst was scrapping the Alpha processors. I’m sure it won’t be hard for him to find work, if he even wants to.

I love how Good Morning Silicon Valley puts it: “HP converting storied garage into recycling center”

This via slashdot.org:

An anonymous reader writes “Wow. 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.”

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