29 Dec
2004
29 Dec
'04
6:34 p.m.
[Computing] I have been told that _Introduction to Objectivist
Epistemology_ was required reading at the Xerox PARC lab where OOP
was invented, but this may be merely an urban legend. --
wilcoxb at cs.colorado.edu (Bryce Wilcox)
--
In view of the temporal sequence, it seemed plausible to
ask whether Rand¹s work had any actual influence on Kay and
his colleagues at Xerox PARC. In October 2001, I sent
electronic mail messages to Kay, and to all the members of his
original Smalltalk team whose e-mail addresses were available
on the Internet, asking this question. The replies I received
were unanimous: Ayn Rand¹s epistemology was not discussed
by or known to any of them. Kay kindly sent me an extended
reply, reproduced in Appendix A
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/events/advsem03/ReedOOP.pdf