On Sun, 26 Jan 2014, Rob Myers wrote:
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.
True, but it's not that different from the waves that occurs in more
traditional poetry. You're not debugging Mezangelle and you're not running
it; you're interpreting it and one person's interpretation is different
from anothers (which is also true btw of antiorp and poetry). Also you're
assuming a stability in 1337 which might not be there.
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.
Here I do disagree with you; reading-as is something that at least I, and
I assume many others do (just as such lists were read by Braudel as-
history). Example - I'm currently reading Walsh's Mercantile Aritmetic,
published in Newbury, Mass, in 1800 - which is just what the title says,
but which reads like a fantastic epic, especially the sections dealing
with monetary exchange (I might quote later, because the writing is
amazing).
I also am not sure that "Code is mathematics" just because it's exact;
certainly at the level of machine language, it follows strict protocols.
Mathematical proofs and proof theory are complicated - look atthe 4-color
theorem - and I find code-reading very different. But then I'm neither an
astute mathematician or programmer.
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.
I really do think there's any sort of "requirement" involved, maybe
part-requirements like part-objects, or something along the line of
"tendencies"; I'm extremely dubious of requirements in relation to art in
general - even the idea that art/literature, etc. _should_ be something as
opposed to something else. Aesthetics and reading behaviors, reception
theory and the like, is far more complex than 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. ;-)
Well they are important, and there are books that emphasize things like
the chemistry of paints etc. - I relate this again to Braudel and the
annales school of historiography.
- Alan
- Rob.
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