A CS Major says “No” to Coding

Read the following quote:

“not only could the two areas usefully benefit from one another… but furthermore that in many ways the two are working on exactly the same projects and the very idea that they are, a priori, separate and distinct bodies of knowledge may be the king hobgoblin of any attempts to create something that professes to be a digital humanities situated somewhere between the two”

“A “Hello World” Apart (why humanities students should NOT learn to program).” Evan Donahue, 28 May 2010,nhttps://www.hastac.org/blogs/evan-donahue/2010/05/28/hello-world-apart-why-humanities-students-should-not-learn-program.

If digital humanities and computer science are essentially in the same field, why should a digital humanist learn how to code?

When I came to Carleton, I had already planned out the next two years: taking all the classes needed for pre-med and majoring in Mathematics. What I learned in Calc 3 is that maybe a Mathematics major isn’t the way I want to go. A friend and I took Intro to CS Winter 2020 and I was enraptured. I never considered pursuing Computer Science, but the coding was what got me into going down that path! The fact that I can take this image and alter its appearance or expand tic-tac-toe to a much wider board amazed me.

Should digital humanists learn to code? I mean, sure, if they want to. I’m not going to stop them from learning how to print “Hello World” in Java. But as Donahue states, “Learn to program whenever it is convenient”.

My experience with coding, I believe, is quite small compared to the CS majors here at Carleton, because it started when I got here. I vaguely remember how to use Python (from Intro), last term I learned C, and now I am in Data Structures learning how to use Java (more how to apply Java to concepts that I’ve learned before).

Here is some code (in Java) where I used uesr input to design a triple-scooped ice cream cone:

for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
            System.out.print("What is the flavor of your " + scoopNum[i] + " scoop? ");
            Scanner userFlavors = new Scanner(System.in);
            String scoop = userFlavors.nextLine();
            System.out.println(scoop);

            if (scoop.equals("BB")) { // bluebarry scoop
                StdDraw.setPenColor(StdDraw.BOOK_BLUE);
                StdDraw.filledCircle(xScoops[i], yScoops[i], 0.1);
                System.out.println("This is the flavor: blueberry");
                // lemon scoop
            } else if (scoop.equals("LM")) {
                StdDraw.setPenColor(StdDraw.ORANGE);
                StdDraw.filledCircle(xScoops[i], yScoops[i], 0.1);
                System.out.println("This is the flavor: lemon");
                // orange scoop
            } else if (scoop.equals("OG")) {
                StdDraw.setPenColor(StdDraw.PRINCETON_ORANGE);
                StdDraw.filledCircle(xScoops[i], yScoops[i], 0.1);
                System.out.println("This is the flavor: orange");
                // galaxy scoop
            } else {
                StdDraw.setPenColor(39,33,79);
                StdDraw.filledCircle(xScoops[i], yScoops[i], 0.1);
                System.out.println("This is the flavor: galaxy");
            }
        }