Seriously, why not? First of all, for the purpose of siding with the debate of “whether or not humanities students should learn to code”, I would say personally that I am in support of the they SHOULD learn to code.
While programming will indeed usefully equip one better to understand computer scientific discourses, it should NOT be taken as the necessary precondition to engaging with the computer sciences and all who consider themselves scholars of the humanities should realize that the discourse of programming is only the technical jargon with which computer scientists address many of the very same questions that one encounters every day in the humanities. Thus, students should learn to program, but they should not let their inability to program prevent them from engaging with the computer sciences.
Evan Donahue. A “Hello World” Apart (why humanities students should NOT learn to program)
The tricky part is that the seemingly opposing opinion is that “humanities students SHOULD NOT learn to code”, which just makes no sense in this digitalizing modern era. Even Donahue stated that he is “100% in favor of everyone learning to program” in his response to Kirschenbaum’s slightly controversial post. The common argument instead, as demonstrated by Donahue, is that they DO NOT NEED to learn to code, which I think is not mutually exclusive with the idea that humanities scholars as a collective SHOULD.
I share similar opinions with both Kirschenbaum and Donahue, starting with the idea that “everyone should learn to code”. With humanity’s ever-increasing dependence on technologies that run on complex codes, it would be a good idea for everyone to avoid being “technological-illiterate”. From there, I would also like to say that humanities students SHOUD BE ENCOURAGED to learn coding. This is because that other students, notably of the the sciences, are on average more familiar to coding and programing compared to humanities students. I am saying from the point of view as a heavy STEM-leaning student, because technology contribute immensely to the things I am learning. Because of this unbalance, I think humanities students should be encouraged to be more familiar with coding and other digital technology in assistance to the learning.
ethanli.PersonalOpinionOnDHCodingDebate.showAll(){
boolean humanitiesStudentsShouldLearnToCode = True;
boolean humanitiesStudentsHaveToLearnToCode = False;
boolean humanitiesStudentsShouldBeEncouragedToCode = True;
}I do agree that coding should not be a forced-upon requirement for any humanities or digital humanities students. At least not yet. Maybe sometime in the future, coding would be too crucial to be ignored in any curriculum, but that’s another discussion and thought process for future Ethan and other scholars in the future.
Personally, I have some okay extend of coding experiences. I was first introduced to some C++ coding basics back in middle school CS class, of which I have completely forgotten since. I picked up some Lego robotics coding (which isn’t really “coding”) and other fun and simple “coding” between then and college but I’d say my only serious-enough coding experience would be limited to Python in Intro to CS and Java in Data Structures, both of which I took last year. Obviously, I am by no means great at either languages, but I really enjoyed the experience of learning these tools and the way of thinking that the class teaches me.
