In this course’s introduction to coding, I had the opportunity to refresh my knowledge and abilities in programming. In high school I had the opportunity to take a computer programming class. A class in which we spent an entire term learning how to code using Java. My experience with the tutorials offered by HTML Dog is that of getting a refresher course in all three of the categories (Java, CSS, and HTML), despite me only having concrete experience with Java. They all happen to be fundamentally similar that I felt like I was doing the same thing with all of them to accomplish different aspects of a singular site. Overall based on my experiences and understanding of coding, I believe that it’s beneficial for people in the humanities to at least be familiar if not some level of proficient in it.
“Programming is about choices and constraints, and about how you choose to model some select slice of the world around you”
Kirschenbaum, M. G. (2010, May 26). Hello Worlds (why humanities students should learn to program). Retrieved January 21, 2020, from https://mkirschenbaum.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/hello-worlds/
While programming is ultimately a task of creation; my previous experiences came to memory as I went through the tutorials as a refresher. I realized that programming may be a force of creation, but it is first and foremost, a task of communication. It’s about knowing what you want and communicating that to the computer so that it can bring your imagination to life.
In the quote above Kirschenbaum talks about how programming is ultimately about models. Two people may want to create the exact same result from a program, but the ways about about programming that result are varied and numerous. The purpose of programming is to instill the ability to properly communicate. Programming is logic, by telling the computer to go through a series of logical steps and logically defining and setting constraints for it, you can accurately create what you want.
That lesson is equally important for the humanities, becoming familiar with programming can instill the lessons of logic. One of the key aspects of academia, particular the humanities is the ability to communicate out results and information so that the greater community may understand it. But, it should be noted that it often falls heavily on the humanities to make that communication comprehensible to the common man. Programming installs the habit of deconstructing complexities into a comprehensive language, and that’s the lesson we must take as humanists from programmers.
We need to continually learn how to communicate some of our most complex ideas to the wider masses; because without that communication of what we learn, can the humanities truly be the humanities? I think not, that’s why I find that familiarity with programming may be an indispensable aspect of modern humanities.
