TITLE: Extravagant Ideas
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: August 27, 2011  9:36 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:
One of the students in my just-started Programming
Languages course recently mentioned that he has started
a company, Glass Cannon Games, to write games for the
XBox and Android platforms.  He is working out of my
university's student incubator.

Last summer,
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2010-08.html#e2010-08-02T13_54_53.htm">
   I wrote</A>
a bit about entrepreneurship and a recent student of mine,
Nick Cash, who has started
<A HREF="http://www.bookhatchery.com/">
   Book Hatchery</A>
to "help authors publish their works digitally".

Going a bit further back, I mentioned an alumnus, Wade
Arnold,
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2008-03.html#e2008-03-05T14_05_51.htm">
   winning a statewide award</A>
for his company,
<A HREF="http://www.t8webware.com/">
   T8 Webware</A>.
Readers of this blog most recently encountered Wade in my
entry on
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2011-04.html#e2011-04-17T12_43_07.htm">
   the power of intersections</A>.

Over the last decade, Wade has taken a few big ideas and
worked hard to make them real.  That's what Nick and,
presumably, Ian are doing, too.

Most entrepreneurs start with big thoughts.  I try to
encourage students to think big thoughts, to consider an
entrepreneurial career.  The more ideas they have, the more
options they have in careers and in life.  Going to work for
a big company is the right path for some, but some want more
and can do their own thing -- if only they have the courage
to start.

This is a more important idea than just for starting
start-ups.  We can "think big and write small" even for the
more ordinary programs we write.  Sometimes we need a big
idea to get us started writing code.  Sometimes, we even
need hubris.  Every problem a novice faces can appear
bigger than it is.  Students who are able to think big
often have more confidence.  That is the confidence they
need to start, and to persevere.

It is fun as a teacher to be able to encourage students to
think big.  As writer Roger Rosenblatt says,

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
One of the pleasures of teaching writing courses is that
you can encourage extravagant thoughts like this in your
students.  These are the thoughts that will be concealed
in plain and modest sentences when they write.  But
before that artistic reduction occurs, you want your
students to think big and write small.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Many students come into our programming courses unsure,
even a little afraid.  Helping them free themselves to have
extravagant ideas is one of the best things a teacher can
do for them.  Then they will be motivated to do the work
they need to master syntax and idioms, patterns and styles.

A select few of them will go a step further and believe
something even more audacious, that

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
... there's no purpose to writing programs unless you
believe in significant ideas.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Those will be the students who start the Glass Cannons,
the Book Hatcheries, and the T8s.  We are all better off
when they do.
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