Of course it's rare that Alan Kay says something not worth revisiting, and bringing up pop music kind of gives me a different take on this quote. It's no secret that pop music (aka folk music) has long informed serious music which has long informed folk music which has long informed serious music ...
I think the current state of programming languages clearly reflects this pattern. I'm happy that the mainstream is becoming interested in something other than the strange variants of Smalltalk OOP we've been using for 30 some years.
In fact there seems to be real grassroots PL renaissance happening these days :)
I'm looking forward to Richard Gabriel's keynote at Clojure/West (http://clojurewest.org/sessions#gabriel). I think it will delve directly into some of this. Fortunately, it will be recorded and released.
I think the current state of programming languages clearly reflects this pattern. I'm happy that the mainstream is becoming interested in something other than the strange variants of Smalltalk OOP we've been using for 30 some years.
In fact there seems to be real grassroots PL renaissance happening these days :)