I want to learn to code. I think it is a valuable skill and something that all students should be taught these days as the world around us becomes increasingly digitized. I am excited to be part of this class specifically because I knew I would learn more about coding, and at the very least, give myself the foundation needed to move forward and continue learning these different languages. That being said, in response to the question at hand, no – I do not think humanities students should learn to code (or moreover, I do not think they need to unless they want to on their own time).
“The ‘discipline’ of computer science is made up of a diverse collection of different areas of work with discourses as mutually unintelligible as those of Judaic studies and film theory. To think of the computer sciences as one ‘computer science’ unified by the language of code makes as much sense as thinking of the humanities as one discipline united by the language of (in the case of the American academy) English.”
Evan Donahue, A “Hello World” Apart (why humanities students should NOT learn to program)
I think the humanities as a discipline offers a lot of freedom for the presentation of one’s research and data. If a humanities student wishes to creatively present their work to their audience, one option could certainly be using code to create an accessible and interactive site (much like how I understand lots of the DH projects we’ve explored in this class), but there are countless other ways to accomplish this and I think it would be unwise to lead students to believe they need coding skills to do so. The quote above uses the phrase “mutually unintelligible,” when relating CS to other academic fields like Judaic studies and film theory. If a humanities student doesn’t need to learn these disciplines, why should they need CS any more?
I consider myself a beginner in every sense of the word when it comes to coding and DH. I took a required CS class for a year in high school where I remember learning the basics of coding, but managed to not retain even the slightest bit of what was taught in the class. Besides this, my experience with coding is very limited; it doesn’t extend much further than the coding I’ve done in the past 2 days through the HTML and CSS tutorials. Things definitely look and sound familiar, and I think I have a solid grasp of the fundamentals, but there’s a lot of work left to be done before I reach the level of proficiency I’m aiming for.
Below is a little sample of code I’ve written up to reflect my opinion. While I definitively choose to stand on Donahue’s side because that was our assignment and I had to make a decision, I would still like to leave it up to those humanity students who these articles directly discuss. The code offers visitors (humanities students) to choose whether they want to read Kirschenbaum’s essay or Donahue’s, conveniently linking each choice to the corresponding opinion; this will let student decide for themselves, instead of us dictating their decisions for them.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Should I learn to code?</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Should I learn to code?</h1>
<h2>I invite any humanities students struggling with this question to visit the two links below and find the answer for themselves...</h2>
<p><a href="https://mkirschenbaum.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/hello-worlds/">Matthew Kirschenbaum on why you <em>should</em> learn</a></p>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220516075231/https://www.hastac.org/blogs/evan-donahue/2010/05/28/hello-world-apart-why-humanities-students-should-not-learn-program">Evan Donahue on why you don't <strong>need</strong> to</a></p>
</body>
</html>