On 26/01/14 09:03 AM, Alan Sondheim wrote: > > for me it relates to IRC and warez slang, 1337, antiorp/integener/n.n.- > speak, a whole array of 'hackerese' languages that also need decoding, > that also don't run in the traditional sense (as opposed to perl poetry > for example) -
It does but I think it takes this further. Reading Mezangelle is like running code to debug it - watching call stack frames being pushed and popped and data being created and operated on. You have to keep track of nested contexts and back references. Each new word fragment or piece of punctuation can operate on and transform the previously read elements. Even when you've parsed Mezangelle it's unstable and active, whether it reduces to a singular meaning or is more ambiguous. This is different from 1337-style encoding. Regarding Seibel's comments on code as literature, James makes a good point about paintbrushes. We don't read shopping lists or meeting notes as literature, yet they are written. Code does not tend to be written as literature. It's possible to read code for pleasure and to find its formatting and data structures, its *form*, aesthetically satisfying. Code is mathematics, so this is similar to enjoying a mathematical proof. I've enjoyed reading code. The DUIM source code was beautiful. I've enjoyed seeing code execute. I still remember the first time I saw Photoshop boot. But this shows that code and software can be evaluated separately. I think that they should go together, like Emacs or LambdaMOO or the Symbolics OS. I think that a piece of software that is a) structured like Emacs to be self-editing or at least self-revealing of its code and is b) constructed to use this facility essayistically or discursively or narratively is what would be required for code to be literature. Char Davies' "Osmose" is a weak example (whatever its other strengths) of this. But I may be proposing a gentrification of code.art. Or discussing the equivalent of why nails and staples aren't considered more important in the social history of painting. ;-) - Rob. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
