Joe Armstrong interviews Alan Kay (2016) [video]

When Erlang creator Joe Armstrong sat down with computing legend Alan Kay in 2016, the video was chill; the comments were not. The hottest thread quotes Kay channeling John McCarthy: “computing will be a utility, like power or water.” Cue a flood of takes. Some cheered, calling Kay the original “cloud” prophet. Others rolled eyes: “Utility? Feels like subscription traps.” And when YouTube prompts “sign in to confirm you’re not a bot,” the crowd snarked: utility first, permissions later. Nostalgia collided with cynicism as fans linked old talks and joked that the future arrived as login screens and micro-billing. Then came the linguistic knife fight. One commenter argued that by Kay’s own logic, Smalltalk-76/80—the later versions of his beloved language—belongs on the same “naughty list” he reserves for C++ and Java. Purists countered that only Smalltalk-72 captured message-passing magic like Erlang, so the critique misses the point. The meta-drama: someone dropped a “has been discussed here” link, which sparked the classic Hacker News move—rehash with spicier memes. Meanwhile, armchair historians tallied views like sports stats and crowned “Normal Considered Harmful” the mood. Verdict from the peanut gallery: heroes are human, ideas age, and the real utility is starting fights that never end. Kay smiled; the comments brawled.