Coding is for Humanities students too

Ryan
Mon, 26 Sep 2022 04:23:54 +0000
Lab Assignment, Week 2, Coding

I believe that anyone, including Humanities students, should learn to code because it teaches us how to look at the world systematically and make models of different aspects of it. For example, when looking at a kettle which is heating some water, one might think that it is unsafe to touch the hot kettle. However, the kettle is safe for some period before it becomes too hot and unsafe to touch. This critical point is defined by parameters such as the kettle’s heating power and how much water is inside it. If a computer program were to tell us when that critical point will be reached, it must have these parameters. In my opinion, it would be very helpful for humans also to have such quantities running in their head when looking at the world. I agree with the following quote from one of the readings in this class:

If only someone had told me I wasn’t learning to manage a hardware store, I was learning to build models.
Kirschenbaum, Matthew. “Hello Worlds (why humanities students should learn to program)”

My prior coding experience

In high school, we were mostly taught pseudocode which is just the algorithm excluding any programming language-specific syntax. But I experimented with actual programming by myself for a short time. In regards to HTML,CSS, and JS, I knew nothing until this course.

My sample HTML code:




My first web page




Humanities students should learn coding because:

It can give them a better sense of structure
It teaches them how to make models of the world by thinking logically
Learning HTML/CSS/JS can help them create a website and present their content nicely
Certain algorithms can assist the field of humanities, for example in text analysis



  Here is a place where beginners can start learning:
HTML Dog