Alan Kay, a genius you need to know.

The following materials are from Baidu Baike

An Kay the best way to predict the future is to invent it. The best way to predict the future is to create it!

-- Alan Kay, inventor of Smalltalk

"The best way to predict the future is to create it." This is a famous saying by the talented Master Alan Kai. He is one of the inventors of the Smalltalk object-oriented programming environment language, he is also one of the founders of object-oriented programming ideas. He is also the earliest thinker of laptops and modern windows
The first user who attempted the GUI.
Allen is a super-IQ child. He can read it at the age of three and learn it by himself at the age of five. He has read hundreds of books when he is in elementary school. As the age grows, Allen's thirst for knowledge has become more intense. Allen recalled, "the school is filled with the idea of a teacher or a textbook. There is nothing more than that, this is ridiculous."
In 1961, Allen was forced to leave the West Virginia Bathany Conservatory of Music, where he studied, and moved to Denver to teach his guitar for a living, causing a poor life. After he volunteered, a potential capability test in computer programming changed his fate: Allen found his talent in the computer field. Later, he went to Utah in central United States to study Electrical and Electronic Engineers. The main reason Allen came to Utah was that Ervin Susan rand, the founder of the innovative programming language sketchpad, was here to teach. Under the guidance of a famous teacher and the hard work of his own, Allen fully draws on the strengths of other programming languages, also draws useful nutrients from his past molecular biology, and creates a "biological analogy" theory. Allen wrote in his paper: "I assume that the ideal computer in the future can have the same biological tissue function, and each 'cell 'can operate independently and accomplish complex goals together with other functions. The 'cell 'can restructure each other to solve the problem or complete the function ."
In the summer of 1968, Allen met the head of the mit ai lab, Simo panwon, and began to be interested in logo language: "When I saw it in the lab, when simoo and his colleagues were teaching a group of children to use the logo language, my whole idea of society had been shaken. Computer programming can really change our lives and create a new future ." Allen also saw the most primitive Handwriting Recognition System in his laboratory at simoo. This system left him ecstatic. Allen said to his friends, "I can create a kind of supermedia by applying handwriting recognition to a computer, just like a newspaper, but it is electronic ." Based on this idea, Allen imagined "dynabook" as a prototype of a modern laptop ".
In 1969, Allen received a doctorate in computer science from Utah State University and then served as a professor at the Stanford University AI lab. After teaching, Allen began to think about how to make a huge computer smaller, such as a book. This type of PC is very convenient for children. They can use it to replace paper. Allen called this new type of PC "kiddiekomp". Since this type of PC requires a new language, Alan designed the Smalltalk language later in the famous earthquake industry. The Smalltalk language reproduced Allen's "Molecular pc idea": Programs are like biological molecules that are connected to each other through information. Smalltalk is recognized by the industry as a representative of "Object-Oriented Programming Languages.
In 1972, Allen served at the Palo Alto Research Center at Xerox. He started his experiment using the Smalltalk language in children's education. The research center recruited many children to learn how to use computers. During the learning process, children's performance was recorded as a material for analysis and research. Allen concluded that, compared with text, children can better learn to use PCs through images and sounds. He presided over the Leadership Center to seize the strategic commanding heights of graphic design of this IT technology. The center has developed a simple PC system, focusing on graphics and animation effects. In addition to leading the center's research work, Allen has also made significant achievements in laptop, Ethernet research, laser printing, and "client server" network models. However, unfortunately, the kind of "dynabook" that Allen imagined never showed up-because the management of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center was unwilling to mobilize resources for an illusory vision.
In 1979, Steve Jobs, Jeff loginson, and several other founders of Apple came to the Xerox Palo Alto center and found that their ideas coincide with ALLEN: at that time, Apple was designing a novel graphic user interface. Steve Jobs excitedly said to his colleagues: "The Smalltalk language is flexible and easy to use, just like it is tailored for Apple." Therefore, it can be said that, whether it is Microsoft's Windows operating system, graphical Linux, or apple, all graphical operation interfaces are the successor of Allen's advanced thinking at that time. Allen is a pioneer in the modern computer industry. He has changed the industrial development direction and people's understanding of computers. Undoubtedly, he is one of the creators of modern programming ideas and modern PC.