Week III: The Humanities and Code

“It is necessary to make this distinction because my main point is that in many cases the concerns of the computer sciences and the concerns of the humanities are literally one and the same. Programming languages math and algorithms are the discourses used by computer scientists to address their concerns[,] just as psycho analysis ethnography and material culture are some of the discourses used to address the concerns of the humanities. The discourse divide is not between the humanities and the computer sciences, but equally much between every subfield therein.”

A “hello world” apart (Why Humanities Students should NOT learn to program), Evan Donahue

This Tuesday, we addressed the debate within the humanities on whether students should learn to code or not, which resulted in interesting takes on the issue from a variety of perspectives. Naturally, as a CS major I’ve got a few biases when it comes to this issue, but I can see the other side through my studies in the humanities. My grandfather once told me: “You’ll get the most out of an experience if you show up wanting to do it.” Because of this, I reject the premise.

I believe that the premise of the argument is flawed. Specialization exists for a reason, and the greatest progress happens when diverse minds of great talent come together. The question isn’t a matter of “should” because that would imply obligation, the question is a matter of “want.” Someone who specializes in philosophy might find boolean algebra fascinating, but that doesn’t entail a ‘want’ to take Math of CS and all of its prerequisites.

The above quote accurately posits that the discourse divide isn’t as black and white as: “humanities say do this and CS says do that!” The reality of the digital relationship between the two is a much more complex and widespread dialogue between all concerned fields within those two fields of study. However, specialization is a double-edged sword. Every day the world is further populated by technology that requires specialization to repair, upkeep and operate to its fullest extent. Now one may argue that this is the exact reason career specialists exist, but I posit this: My Grandmother, a trauma nurse, knew how to pull apart, reassemble and maintain the engine of her Volkswagen Beatle—do you know how to fix the engine of your car? Probably not, but then again, neither do I. The world is moving further into hyper-specialization’s territory; to be on the cusp of human development requires an intelectual hunger for your field. I could be wrong, after all, average people don’t need to know how to repair a 4, 5 or 6 cylinder engine—but it’s still probably important to know the rudiments of the super computer in your pocket works.

ar our_world = ["The", "status", "quo", "will", "be", "broken"];

 j = 0
 let current_mindset = our_world[j];
 while(current_mindset != "broken")
 {
     console.log("The status quo remains.");
     j++;
     current_mindset = our_world[j]
 }
 
 console.log("Change is coming.")

After all is said and done, I’ve been writing code for a little over four years now in everything from LaTEx to C and back, front end and back end, SQL queries and games alike. I’ve always had an urge to try and figure out how things work—it’s not enough to know that the screen of my laptop turns on when I press the power button; I simply can’t take this physically invisible repository of human knowledge for granted in my every day life. Should everyone learn to code? Probably. Will they? Not unless they’re motivated to.

— A.J.