Humanities Students and Programming

A debate in the humanities world is whether or not humanities students should learn how to program. Supporters say that it is important for humanities students to learn how to code as it is a way of thinking by using models. Opponents believe that teaching humanities students how to code is too confusing and time consuming. I think that humanities students should learn how to code at a basic level to understand what is going on underneath their projects and what is possible.

It is important for humanities students to learn the basics of coding as coding is a way of thinking.  Coding also allows for digital humanities scholars to create new projects that could not be done without the usage of computers. This idea can be seen in Kirschenbaum’s article, as he mentions that, “Computers should not be black boxes but rather understood as engines for creating powerful and persuasive models of the world around us.” At the very least, humanities students should be familiar enough with the coding to be able to discuss what they want to do in a project and what the project will look like. When I took a look at the Paul’s Cross project earlier this week, I was amazed how historians could recreate a sermon in a building that did not exist today. By learning basic coding, I understood how this project was completed and how to make my own digital humanities project.

My experience with learning how to code has been for the most part positive. I had a little bit of experience messing around with HTML and CSS before, but this was the first time I understood the code and what the commands did. I found Codecademy easy to use and I liked it that the website walked through all of the steps to make an object. However, I did not like it that if you did not put exactly what the program wanted, it would not let you move on to the next exercise. Problems aside, I enjoyed using Codecademy and learned a lot on how HTML, CSS, and Java work together to make a website. For these reasons, I think that it is important for humanities students to learn how to code.

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