“Such an education is essential if we are to cultivate critically informed citizens — not just because computers offer new worlds to explore, but because they offer endless vistas in which to see our own world reflected.”
Matthew Kirschenbaum, “Hello Worlds (why humanities students should learn to program)”, May 23, 2010
Humanists should learn how to code because coding is omnipresent across educational domains, not only in the realm of Computer Science. Computers are used in nearly all aspects of our lives. In his blog post “Hello Worlds (why humanities students should learn to program)”, Matthew Kirschenbaum states that, “such an education is essential if we are to cultivate critically informed citizens — not just because computers offer new worlds to explore, but because they offer endless vistas in which to see our own world reflected.” Kirschenbaum argues that computers give us new perspectives on things we wouldn’t be able to see on our own.
Many things in our lives are based on computer programs; the computers on our cars programmed control basic functions, the emails we receive from others, and the field of academia we study now. More importantly, during the coronavirus era, we have been more supported by computer programs to interact than we have ever before. These programs have all been coded by someone and carefully debugged for our use. The browser we use to look up facts instantly is based on code; we have very user-friendly versions.
I have little to no coding experience; my path so far has never intersected with learning how to code until this course. I use Google to look up many things, but never pay attention to the code behind the site. I took a course that included R, which wasn’t nearly as useful as a first coding language like HTML, CSS, or JavaScript.
<html>
<title> My first paragraph </title>
<p> Paragraph created using HTML. </p>
</html>I always wanted to understand how to code because of all the creative and practical implications, such as creating computer programs and blogs. For example, I could make this passage in HTML, which would be readable by WordPress. This would remove the need and reliance on platforms for communication, an important step towards educational independence throughout my academic career.
<html>
<style>
p {
color: black;
font-family: "Times New Roman";
font-size: 14px;
background-color: #fff;
}
</style>
<body>
<p>This is a paragraph using both CSS and HTML.</p>
</body>
</html>
Hi Phoebe! I think your point about technology being so omnipresent, especially during the pandemic, is super interesting to think about. Google recently released a podcast on Spotify that talks about their data centers, and one of the first things they discussed was the huge uptick in internet use when everything went online. I agree that skills like coding and other forms of digital literacy are increasingly useful!
I like your use of real world examples like browser search and email exchanges to demonstrate the importance of coding and technology today especially during the COVID era.