it would strengthen the fact that modern art in a sense has little
straight-forward use value but great value as exchange; it's a discursive
formation and doesn't really exist without that habitus - which is also
what makes it fascinating and exciting -
On Fri, 24 Jan 2014, James wrote:
Pall Thayer <[email protected]> wrote:
And, as a reply to Seibel's comments, do we not "decode" literature? I've
always felt a deep divide between people who have a background in
programming/engineering/tech stuff who have moved into creative realms
("Art") and those who have a background in the arts but have moved towards
programming/engineering ("tech"). It feels to me that the tech-background
people have a harder time seeing programming as "art". To them, the product
might be art, but not the process. They tend to be the ones to raise the
question, "is the paint brush the art?" It all depends on how you approach
it. The "paint brush" can, in fact, be the art.
I have a hard time with this paint brush bring art. I mean I could go to the
?1shop and get a pack of three brushes with the bristles falling out and call
it art, but what would be the point? it would only strengthen the feeling
that modern art is pretentious b.s.. its probably difficult for anyone who
isn't immersed in the aartt world in some way on a daily basis. probably
only makes sense or has any meaning if you are, certainly meaningless to me.
a paint brush from the pound shop as art, that is, well I struggle with most
art as art actually these days.
On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 8:11 PM, Pall Thayer <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Alan, I think you make an excellent point here. "Who is
looking at the code and for what purposes?" The only thing that
differentiates programming code from other written text is its
perceived purpose and people's reasons for reading the text. If,
in reading, you look for prose, you will find it. If you don't,
you won't. Likewise, if you look at an image, seeking art, you
will find it. If you're looking for something else, you won't
find the art.
On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Alan Sondheim <[email protected]>
wrote:
Well, there are a number of issues here. In the first
place, they're looking at code for particular reasons, to
understand it in particular ways; code as literature or as
part-objects within literature (codework) is not meant to
be decoded the same way. Think of counting the number of
"t"s for example in a poem - that's also a way of decoding
it, but is of course different than literary reading. I
think there's a hermeneutics involved here, as well as the
Wittgensteinian idea of "family of usages" - so who is
looking at the code/codework, for what purpose, and so
forth? It's problematic; since code is primarily
originating with programmers, they're interested in its
functionality, taking it apart, but that's not it's only
function, certainly not within the aegis of literature. An
interesting aside to this of course is reading a
mathematical text, which I think _can_ be a work of
literature fairly directly - for example Einstein's theory
of relativity. One's reading speeds and slows, and the
formulas require decoding as well, but of a different
sort, I think; I also feel that, say, cosmological
formulas are denser and more layered, more difficult to
unravel perhaps, than most programming code - but I may
well be mistaken here (and should take this whole sentence
back!).
- Alan
On Thu, 23 Jan 2014, marc garrett wrote:
Code Is Not Literature - or is it?
I was browsing Slashdot as one does and found a link to an
article called ?Code Is Not Literature?.
As I was reading this I was thinking of Mez and Alan
Sondheim, and thought to myself - surely, if someone turns
it into literature, then it is literature?
Anyway, have a read and see what you think?
"Hacker and author Peter Seibel has done a lot of work to
adopt one of the most widely-accepted practices toward
becoming a better programmer: reading high quality code.
He's set up code-reading groups and interviewed other
programmers to see what code they read. But he's come to
learn that the overwhelming majority of programmers don't
practice what they preach. Why? He says, 'We don't read
code, we decode it. We examine it. A piece of code is not
literature; it is a specimen.' He relates an anecdote from
Donald Knuth about figuring out a Fortran compiler, and
indeed, it reads more like a 'scientific investigation'
than the process we refer to as 'reading.' Seibel is now
changing his code-reading group to account for this: 'So
instead of trying to pick out a piece of code and reading
it and then discussing it like a bunch of Comp Lit. grad
students, I think a better model is for one of us to play
the role of a 19th century naturalist returning from a
trip to some exotic island to present to the local
scientific society a discussion of the crazy beetles they
found.'"
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/14/01/21/1847217/code-is-not-literatur
e
Here?s Seibel?s original text on his blog
http://www.gigamonkeys.com/code-reading/
wishing you well.
marc
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