The Play's the Thing

I could get used to this. One month into the Long Service Leave...its all Play, Learn, Play, Learn, Play. And it's all good. Ella informs me that my new Nokia N800 is not a Toy, "it's for work". I'm delighted to say that at the age of 39 and a half, I can't see the difference.

I play with the kids. I play with hardware, I play writing software, I read fiction, nonfiction, and the blogosphere in between. I've been to Perth for a Party and to Melbourne for a Show.

I've visited kindergartens: each with the same creed: children learn through play. Actually, children learn by being children; by talking, listening, laughing, arguing, watching, drawing and playing. But of all the approaches to learning, play alone is the one our society deprecates as we get older.

Our society is big on Sport and Recreation - but they're not the same thing. That definition of Play seems to be defined by how far apart it can get from our idea of Work, where work is anything we don't enjoy that earns remuneration (known in HR departments as Compensation).

Some proprietary companies like Google use Play as a part of their work culture. And the winnowed fields of Academia still regard Play as a basic right, even if the experience and joy of play has been missing between Preschool and the Post Doc. Open source software development understands the power of play.

Statistically, it takes a very large group indeed to include even a few individuals to whom play is hacking kernels or writing compilers. Still, in their own sub cultures, these things are cool. What about corporate accounting systems? Maybe the group isn't big enough yet. I don't know exactly how big the Internet is, but I do know it is getting bigger, and more connected, every day.

Eventually, the best software will be child's play - built by children of all ages.