Town Hall II ~ Program or Be Programmed: Do We Need Computational Literacy in C&W?

Review by Lynn C. Lewis

Panelists
David Rieder, North Carolina State University
Annette Vee, University of Pittsburgh
Mark Sample, George Mason University
Alexandria Lockett, Pennsylvania State University
Karl Stolley, Illinois Institute of Technology
Liz Losh (respondent), University of California, San Diego

The Town Hall’s title, “Program or be Programmed” appeared to set up a problematic binary.^[1]  (The title refers to a well-known mantra in the computers and writing community, chosen for this forum to represent the recent call to  learn to code.)  However, if, as the title suggests,  our options are “join or be cast out,” those of us who do work outside the paradigm, could be doomed.^[2]  Luckily, the four panelists offered nuance as well as substance to the equation and, moreover, provoked a sleepy pre-lunch audience into energetic and thoughtful back channel responses.  Panelists included David Rieder, Annette Vee, Mark Sample, Alexandria Lockett, and Karl Stolley.  Liz Losh served as respondent.  Each panelist spoke for five to ten minutes, and while all were in agreement with the value of code for Computers and Writing scholars, their varied presentations suggest the potential richness of this area of inquiry for the field.

Below, I summarize the panelists’ arguments and provide space for the back channel commentary during this stimulating panel.  The back channel commentary is also suggestive of what participants “took away”^[3] from this Town Hall.

David Rieder, Associate Professor at North Carolina State University, opened the conversation with his talk, “Programming is the New Ground of Writing.”  Rieder introduced a Mark Tansy painting titled “Picasso and Braque,” in order to trouble the notion of words as essential to writing.  The painting, Rieder argued, suggests that one can break free from the logocentric ground and push the boundaries of writing outward. ^[4]  For Rieder, the value of the newsprint wings of the flying machine lies in their flying machine functionality rather than their readability.^[5]  The metaphor describes why writing should be regarded as generative and algorithmic^[6] and, Rieder argues, mobile, transformative writing cannot therefore be limited to the logocentric framework.  In order to be part of the future, Rieder urges us all to write and create in code.^[7]

Annette Vee, Assistant Professor at University of Pittsburgh, interrogated “good code.”  Her presentation, “Valuing Code,” problematized the notion of good code as Platonic ideal^[8] because of the importance of context.^[9]  Context situates the rhetoricity of code and, consequently, academics and software engineers value code differently.^[10]  Vee demonstrated a sample of her own code which does what she wants it to do and yet would be deemed messy and unstructured by software engineers. Since code is rhetorical,^[11] its values should be contextualized.  Finally, Vee called for a widening of the values associated with code — a critical move for academics engaged with code.^[12]

Mark Sample, Assistant Professor at George Mason University, offered “5 BASIC Statements on Computational Literacy.”  Developed by Dartmouth in the 1960s, the BASIC computer language structured Sample’s approach to the topic.^[13]  For Sample, these one-line programs provide insight into the nature of code and to its importance to the humanities.^[14]  Sample explored each statement^[15] in order to establish a definition of code as a historically situated, social private text, that values sharing and humor.^[16]  Last, Sample suggested we use the term “competency” instead of “literacy” because of the troubled notion of literacy^[17] as a gatekeeper rather than contextual and individual.

Alexandria Lockett, Ph.D. candidate at Pennsylvania State University, complicated conventional understandings of who codes with her talk titled, “I Am Not a Programmer.”  Lockett’s reflective narrative considered how her own identity as code switcher^[18] from Standard White English to African American English, among others, gave her entree into a hacker identity.  Frustration with an old, slow computer and friendship with a computer software engineer neighbor led Lockett to an exploration of Ubuntu, an open source Linux OS.^[19]  From here, she explored communities such as Slashdot, Reddit, and the Open-Source Software community in order to be able to envision these community’s values.^[20]  Locket stressed the dynamism of code^[21] as well as the ease of access into playing with code.  Because she hacks language,^[22]she sees hacking code as essential to pedagogical practices and as a way of opening up exciting possibilities for her students.^[23]

Karl Stolley,^[24] Assistant Professor, Illinois Institute of Technology, argued for “Source Literacy:  A Vision of Craft.”^[25]  Stolley described his vision for the future, in which computers and writing scholars work and engage with code on a daily basis.^[26]  Stolley imagines craft as centerpiece of the field’s practices, ^[27] that is, making with the basic materials of digital production rather than through WYSIWYG automatons.  Stolley offered four strategies meant to ensure his vision’s viability,^[28]  which involve learning Unix, GitHub, a good text editor, HTML, CSS, and languages such as JavaScript or Ruby in order to craft on the web.^[29]  Stolle suggests that one is either with or not with this mandate:^[30]  this is a matter of being responsible digital craftspeople^[31].

Elizabeth Losh, Director of Academic Programs, Sixth College, University of California at San Diego was respondent for the Town Hall.  Losh saw learning code as essential work and noted the ways in which anxieties about learning code represent a kind of performance anxiety.^[32] Losh suggested that after richness of the Town Hall’s presentations, the audience should feel less anxious.^[33] The real issue,^[34] Losh argued, is one of disciplinary turf,  an issue best answered by an application of procedural literacy.

Coda
Questions following the Town Hall presenters varied from asking how best to go about learning code to concerns about insider/outsider status.  This Town Hall sparked much conversation, and, unquestionably suggested numerous under-theorized questions to be explored as the field considers what it means to privilege code.  Such questions include

• How best might the writing classroom work with code?^[35]  What is included that is new?  What gets left out — and does it matter?^[36]
• Might a focus on code increase the height of the “Ivory Tower? “ Or might it provide deeper access to less privileged communities?^[37]
• If indeed “no one has permission not to know the politics of the machine,” as Lockett argued during the q and a,^[38] what are the politics of coding and what tactics do they demand of scholars in the field?