CodeworkWorkshopDay1

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Post your thoughts on and during Day 1 of the workshop. You can post as a comment in the box below or you can create an entirely new page off of this page using the "create" box below.

comments:

Sandy's Friday Thoughts --sbaldwin, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 07:23:15 -0400 reply
I'll offer one ambitious goal for this first day: to arrive at a definition or model of writing. I am limiting myself to the abstract, with the sense that the cultural and historical field around writing will insist on itself in the discussion, but that we will turn more towards these questions in Day 2. Today's model will surely be heterogeneous and uneven, but would begin to define the differential field of creative writing and computer programming. What is the written mark and text in each? What is the process of writing in each? What is the action of the writer in each? Keep in mind, though: We're here to explore and speculate. Go for it!

alan's talk: pedagogy --center, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:27:12 -0400 reply
a Steinway can modify a text!

creative gesture --center, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:28:07 -0400 reply
this work is ghoul-oriented!

no jokes please --center, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:32:14 -0400 reply
debutiful work, john!

Sondheim: "There are no errors." --fvanscoy, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:34:19 -0400 reply
This morning Alan said something like, "Unlike programming, in the creative work I do, there are no errors. There are only'creative commotion' and 'repetoire extension.'"

During Alan's first week in the VEL (in 2004) My group tried hard to give him a clean .bvh file that accurately modeled the movement of a human actor. Alan's first request was for us to change the mappings of sensors to body parts.

At that point I realized we were coming from different cultures and were in for an exciting time!

etymology points to violent beginnings --center, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:35:48 -0400 reply
Write, from scratch, engrave, tear, wound… same as “writhe,” from IE wer- to bend, twist, tear, wound…to cause to twist or contort… wreath too comes from this

critical ghost studies --center, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:45:55 -0400 reply
suggestive but misleading insights, pseudo-insights. this is insightful but raises the ante; will one of us in the next few days be offering pseudo-insights? The value of much discussion (how is this community protected against the risk of pseudo-hood and cachet-mongering?) is that the pseudo can be integrated into something substantive and can itself contribute. the pharmakon –writing itself– has been posited as pseudo, and that is what sets in motion the dynamic friction that engenders...meaning? discourse? or pseudo-discourse?

computer poetry (IBM poem template) --fvanscoy, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:16:09 -0400 reply
When I read poems produced by an algorithm sometimes I think that the poet has transferred to me much of the work of a traditional poet. That is, rather than the poet wrestling with selecting words and arrangement of words to convey the desired meaning, the reader is expected to discover meaning, meaning probablly not intended or anticipated by the poet.

It reminds me of the Gandalf/Gnome projects at Carnegie-Mellon in the 1980s. The language sensitive editors required the user essentially to enter an arithmetic expression in prefix notation, unlike a traditional compiler that translates an arithmetic expression from infix notation to prefix or postfix notation. A key task was transferred from the computer to the programmer.

Arthur C. Clarke's Sunstorm and sentience --fvanscoy, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:42:55 -0400 reply
Two weeks ago I read Arthur C. Clarke's recent novel Sunstorm. In the novel there are three classes of sentient beings--humans, certain other primates, and certain kinds of intelligent program--all with specific legal protections.

A start... --nmontfort, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:57:44 -0400 reply
# IBM Poem Generator

vocab = ['...'] * 26
for i in range(26):
  anyword = raw_input(chr(97+i) + =)
  vocab[i] = anyword.lower()
tlw = ...
while not tlw.isalpha():
  tlw = raw_input(Provide a 3 letter word or phrase: )
  tlw = tlw.lower()
title = vocab[ord(tlw[0]) - 97] +   + vocab[ord(tlw[1]) - 97] + \
    + vocab[ord(tlw[2]) - 97]
print title
firstthree = [''] * 3
for i in range(3):
  for c in vocab[ord(tlw[i]) - 97]:
     firstthree[i] += vocab[ord(c) - 97] +  
  print firstthree[i]

# Generation of the remaining lines is left as an exercise...

Um --nmontfort, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:59:08 -0400 reply
Is there some way to format that properly as code? I can't see how to edit what I just posted. This wiki certainly seems to privilege non-executable writing.

abstraction and Grady Booch --fvanscoy, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:03:09 -0400 reply
In a 2006 interview with Frontier Journal http://www.hwswworld.com/uploaddownload/interview/booch_interview.php , Grady Booch was asked about the future of software engineering.

He said concerning abstraction, "If we look over the history of software engineering, it has been one of growing levels of abstraction - and thus it's reasonable to presume that the future will entail rising levels of abstraction as well. We already see this with the advent of domain-specific frameworks and patterns. As for languages, I don't see any new interesting languages on the horizon that will achieve the penetration that any one of many contemporary languages has. I held high hopes for aspect-oriented programming, but that domain seems to have reached a plateau. There is tremendous need to for better languages to support massive concurrency, but therein I don't see any new, potentially dominant languages forthcoming. Rather, the action seems to be in the area of patterns (which raise the level of abstraction). "

counting and accounting --center, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:08:22 -0400 reply
writing but also knotting (writhing/wreathing), the quipu

A start... --center, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:11:41 -0400 reply
wonderful Nick! thanks!! I'd really like to see, next, the graphical component configured, which makes the IBM poem even more interesting. Wildly impressed, in any case, by your quick work here--a wonderful surprise--cfunk

code back there? --leonardo, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:21:38 -0400 reply
Marshack (sp) The Roots of Civilization? Acheulian pebbles? Peirce useful re: symbolic/ikonic/indexical - where does program code fit? Semaphore as dynamic scar? Early morse code - the original dashes were of variable length, as were the spaces. There were 2, 3, and 4x dash length; Morse code was replaced by Continental code except for local U.S. use.

Andy Oram and Asperger's Syndrome --fvanscoy, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:34:01 -0400 reply
Andy Oram mentioned Asperger's Syndrome a few minutes ago.

See http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9072119&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1 for "Asperger's and IT: Dark secret or open secret?"

Formatted, commented version of the code --nmontfort, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:41:31 -0400 reply
I posted the IBM poem code on Grand Text Auto, where I blog, and also uploaded the program as a text file.

writing on the body written history? --leonardo, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:14:21 -0400 reply
scars, tattoos, incisions, scrapes, piercings, etc. - body written history. does writing necessarily have a memory? - diffuse markings as gatherings towards symbols. Computer addressing related (I think) to uses of Morse code, semaphore, in 20th-century - VE for example for the beginning of a communication in British WWII air corps signal systems. The code was highly developed, multi-layered, built on fundamental transmissions of Continental code. (Alan, not Leonardo, unfortunately logging in)

writing on the tree --center, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:46:21 -0400 reply
code>codex>treetrunk...inscription on treetrunks

The peer-reviewed open source repository I mentioned --nmontfort, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:59:37 -0400 reply
The JMLR Track for Machine Learning Open Source Software. I wanted to point this out because only recently, in areas within computer science where code is very important, are academic, official facilities for sharing code arising to join the existing ways of sharing knowledge through papers.

Mary Shaw and research paradigms --fvanscoy, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:08:03 -0400 reply
I had some frustrating weeks a couple of years ago of negotiating with the new advisor of the gifted program at a local high school. This program allows certain seniors to spend 1 to 3 afternoons per week in a WVU professor's research lab working on a project. She objected to the project "my" senior wanted to do because there wasn't a research hypothesis. I finally told her that the question to be answered was "Is it possible to write a program that will run on a current home computer system and do X?"

problematic creativity? digital? --leonardo, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:22:07 -0400 reply
Gaming, hacking, cracking, circuit-bending, mashups - creative practices - vandalization from perhaps a position of coherency? Microsoft as viral, controlling, proprietary, signed. Anonymity - the hold anon.penet.fi, deadzones, black holes, back door, Amiga demos years ago, alt.hackers (had to break into the newsgroup in order to post) == decay, corrosion, abjection, uneasiness of dysfunctionality Is there something in this that might be at the core of wild creativity? (Alan again)

the process of creativity --fvanscoy, Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:37:16 -0400 reply
I hope that tomorrow several of us can describe HOW we produce creative works. How do you decide to start a new work and how do you decide WHAT project to start? How much advance planning do you do? How does your previous work influence your present work? How do you measure quality of your work? How do you improve the quality of a work in progress? How do you decide when a piece is "finished"?

seniors getting healthcare info online --center, Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:08:44 -0400 reply
I tracked down the numbers I mentioned this afternoon. They come from the Pew Foundation Internet and American Life Project at http://www.pewinternet.org/

Although only 32% of the "elderly" (defined as 65+, to my surprise) in the US currently use the Internet, 65% of people ages 50-64 do, and they are aging into the elderly population. As a result, “wired seniors” are the fastest-growing Internet demographic. Adults living with a disability or chronic disease are less likely than other adults to use the internet, but they are avid consumers of health care information; about 43% of these adults are getting health care information online, but they typically do not critically evaluate the sources of the information.

Mary Shaw

Link to Nelson Audio --ksherwood, Sat, 05 Apr 2008 08:44:40 -0400 reply
Nelson

Different forms/goals of search --andyo, Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:31:08 -0400 reply
We spent a long time discussing our frustrations with current popular search technologies. There are a lot of aspects to "good" search results.

Many speakers, such as Mary Shaw, were concerned with quality in the sense of accuracy. Here, people should learn what sites to trust (look for medical advice at Johns Hopkins, not a crackpot site of people who are afraid of traditional medicine). What this advice leads to is a system of identification and reputation, topics being highly researched in the Internet. What it leads to, in fact, is a superstructure on top of the Internet: a new network with its own protocols and coding rules that you have to buy into (perhaps literally, by getting authorized certificates) in order to join.

Another, separate, issue is that of relevance. That's why someone recommended Clusty (http://clusty.com/) as an easier way to find information. In the field of computer education, I'm interested in a subset of this goal which involves finding pathways through documents. If I read something that uses terms and concepts I don't understand, what introductory document should I go back to? I have suggested solutions (http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/01/two-tools-we-need-to-improve-o.html#cross_reference).