When I started to learn new mediums in art classes, I often spent time simply playing with the medium: squishing clay into odd shapes or brushing paint on paper in free and unplanned motions. Of course one often moves on to develop control and technique in order to communicate one’s message better, but much creativity springs from such uncontrolled and spirited play.

It is difficult for the novice to play at programming. There is little room for simple expression or error. A simple program does not communicate with the same range and strength as a masterfully simple line drawing or haunting melody. A programmer cannot hit a few wrong notes, or tolerate an undesired ripple in a line. If the syntax isn’t right, the program won’t compile; if the semantics aren’t right, the program won’t do anything interesting. There are exceptions to the latter statement, but they are notable because of their rarity. If you’re going to write a program to accomplish a task, you’ve got to do some things completely right, and everything else almost perfectly.