Title of this blog

Experience of blogging on this site over the last few months helped me see that there are many larger issues related to computing that need to be discussed to further the main aim of evolving better teaching strategies. It seemed to me that the title "Computing and Computability" is too restrictive in its connotations. So I tried to think of a more general term.

First I thought of "Joy of Computing". But then it is not as if computing by itself gives joy. The joy depends on the spirit with which one approaches it. Besides I found that there is already a book of that title --- a book for librarians!

Then I considered the "Tao of Computing". I gave up that idea too because it seemed to me a little pretentious on my part to claim to know that. And again there is already a book by that name!

Trying for a third time, I considered a phrase suggested by Mr. MGPL Narayana, Vice President of Tata Consultancy Services and the head of their Business Systems & Cybernetics Centre: "Principles of Computing". Googling this I discovered a great web site called the "Great Principles of Computing". This project gives far deeper and more comprehensive insights than I can ever hope to discover or formulate on my own. So that too needed to be given up.

I finally settled on the present title: "Computing as Play". That is how I look at computing any way. In addition, this title gives me a certain freedom to play around with and around the ideas of computing, computability, computation, and programming. It also has a certain philosophical ring to it. There is a classical Indian point of view that looks at the entire creation as play!