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:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>My first web page</title>
</head>
<body>
<pre>
<h2>Humanities students should learn coding because:</h2>
<ol>
<li>It can give them a better sense of structure
<li> It teaches them how to make models of the world by thinking logically
<li>Learning HTML/CSS/JS can help them create a website and present their content nicely
<li>Certain algorithms can assist the field of humanities, for example in text analysis
</ol>
Here is a place where beginners can start learning:
<p> <a href= "https://www.htmldog.com">HTML Dog</a></p>
</pre>
</body>
</html>
3 thoughts on “Coding is for Humanities students too”
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I like your example of comparing hot kettle to programming. I do feel people have fear of coding, like the uncanny valley or fear of AI. I view coding as a double-edged sword, one need to use it carefully and don’t let coding use him or her. Also, like President Roosevelt famously said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” People may get less fear to coding when they know more about coding.
I love this discussion about coding as the process of building models. I want to extend that by saying that coding is not just the process of building models for the objects and phenomena we see around us but also serves as a model of ourselves. Specifically, our code reflects our beliefs and identity as individuals. The details we care about (like accessibility and code hygiene or lack thereof) comment on who we are and what we prioritize. As such, it’s tempting to think about coding as part of the humanities itself. Who is to say that it belongs only to computer scientists?
Your kettle example reminded me of a project that I did in my Intro to CS course. We were assigned to take weather information from a CSV database and map it on a rudimentary GIS system. Like the kettle example, we had to categorize the weather patterns depending on different threshholds that they passed. I, unfortunately, forgot most of what went into the project but the idea that CS is allowing us to generate models of the outside world faster, more accurately, and more easily than was possible without it is easy to see.