Overheard: The father of object-oriented programming

But just to show how stubbornly an idea can hang on, all through the seventies and eighties, there were many people who tried to get by with “Remote Procedure Call” instead of thinking about objects and messages. Dr. Alan Kay (he coined the name OOP)

Doesn’t this quote remind you of Grace Hopper? She said: The most dangerous phrase in the language is, “We’ve always done it this way.”

If you want to learn more about the guy who “invented” object-oriented programming, Wikipedia has a good entry — but I absolutely love this video where he shares his ideas about how we learn. I HIGHLY recommend it. Apple should have a poster for Alan Kay. He thinks different(ly). My favorite quote of Dr. Kay’s is “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”