Top all-time · #5942
Tekkie
Personal blog · tekkie.wordpress.comprogrammingculture
Tekkie is a personal blog at tekkie.wordpress.com about programming and culture. Since 2007, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 15 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Tekkie's blog for posts on Smalltalk, Squeak, SICP and 'code as data', and early computing history, often as references in discussions about Alan Kay's work.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
"If you care a lot about the future, it shows that you believe in what you're doing now and you think it's worthwhile enough to have some lasting impact." - Syd Mead
Most-linked posts?
- /2010/07/05/sicp-what-is-meant-by-data/2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-06-21
What Hacker News says?
Take a look here: https://tekkie.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/sicp-what-is-meant-b...
Comment linking /2010/07/05/sicp-what-is-meant-by-data/
on “Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today”Submitted Java: Let it be as a story · 13 points
HN discussionNot OP. This seems to be the best "blue thought" explanation I can find: https://tekkie.wordpress.com/2007/07/11/redefining-computing... Definitely not in common use - the parent comment is a top ranking result for a variety of relevant-seeming searches.
Comment linking /2007/07/11/redefining-computing-part-2/
on “Freeman Dyson Has Died”Submitted Lisp: Surprise! You're soaking in it as a story · 4 points
HN discussionApparently it changed over time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1373443 https://tekkie.wordpress.com/2006/05/31/rediscovering-dr-dij...
Comment linking /2006/05/31/rediscovering-dr-dijkstra-and-giving-lisp-a-second-chance/
on “Jean Sammet, co-creator of COBOL, has died”Submitted Reminiscing Compute! Magazine Type-In Programs (2007) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> I wrote about it at https://tekkie.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/encountering-smallta... . Sweet, thanks! There's also the ST-78 system at https://lively-web.org/users/bert/Smalltalk-78.html > existed in a nether world between functions and macros Macros are just functions that operate on functions at 'read-time', from my POV. So if you eliminate the distinction between read-time and run-time, they're the same. > It's…
Comment linking /2014/02/19/encountering-smallta..
on “Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true”Submitted Does computer science have a future? (2009) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI can't remember if I've brought this up already in this thread, but if you want to "kick the tires" on ST-72, Dan Ingalls has an implementation of it up on the web. It's running off of a real ST-72 image. I wrote about it at https://tekkie.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/encountering-smallta... I include a link to it, and described how you can use it (to the best of my knowledge), though my description was only current to…
Comment linking /2014/02/19/encountering-smalltalk-72-on-the-web/
on “Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true”Submitted Getting an Education in America as a story · 2 points
HN discussionTaking your feedback into consideration, I had the thought that it would be more accurate to talk about things like "2" in an OOP context as symbols with semantics (which provide meaning to them), not data, since "data" connotes more a collection of inputs/quantities, where we may be able to attach a meaning to it, or not, and that wasn't what I was going after. I was going after a relationship between information a…
Comment linking /2010/07/05/sicp-what-is-meant-by-data/
on “Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true”Submitted Exploring the Meaning of Tron Legacy (2011) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSee also Mark Miller’s excellent blog post on the same topic, which really turned on a few lightbulbs for me: https://tekkie.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/sicp-what-is-meant-b...
Comment linking /2010/07/05/sicp-what-is-meant-by-data/
on “Just what does “code as data” mean anyway? (2014)”Maybe this email list has some details? ( http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2007-March/0... ) Here's a mildly interesting rant: ( http://www.yosefk.com/blog/the-high-level-cpu-challenge.html ) This post doesn't give any details of the benchmark, but describes another test (boot, load word processor, open document, close wp, shut down) and compares an old mac and a (at the time) modern laptop. ( http://…
Comment linking /2009/08/12/does-computer-science-have-a-future/
on “The Burroughs B5000 - 20 Years Later and Still Ahead of the Times?”Smalltalk is written in Smalltalk. It's unique in being far more than a language: once upon a time, it was an operating system ( http://tekkie.wordpress.com/2007/07/19/squeak-is-like-an-ope... ).
Comment linking /2007/07/19/squeak-is-like-an-operating-system/
on “Ask HN: What programming language was ______ written in?”
