on not learning to code

For the past decade or more I’ve fiddled around with learning to code: when I first began I tried to learn some Perl, then later Python, then Ruby, then back to Python again. But I’ve never been able to stick with it for any significant period of time, and I think the chief reason is this: I still have no idea what I would ever do with any of those languages. I can’t imagine a use-case. By contrast, I’ve learned various markup languages — LaTeX, HTML, CSS — because, as someone who writes and presents what he writes to others in various venues, the uses of such tools are obvious. But most people don’t think of that kind of thing as real coding.

The article that most people quote when humanists ask whether they should learn to code is this one by Matt Kirschenbaum. Its subtitle is “Why humanities students should learn to program,” but I don’t think Kirschenbaum addresses that question directly, or with any degree of specificity.

He does describe some particular cases in which code literacy matters: “the student of contemporary literature interested in, say, electronic poetry or the art of the novel in the information age”; “the student interested in computer-assisted text analysis, who may need to create specialized programs that don’t yet exist”; “Procedural literacy, which starts with exercises like making a snowball, will be essential if humanities students are to understand virtual worlds as rhetorical and ideological spaces.” Fair enough. But what about those of us who aren’t studying virtual worlds or electronic poetry?

Typically, we see the value of a particular skill — driving a car; cooking; playing a musical instrument — and because we perceive the value we go about acquiring that skill. But sometimes the arrow may point in the other direction: only when you acquire the skill do you perceive its uses. I have a suspicion that if I got really good at writing Python I would find uses for it. But because I can’t imagine what those uses could be, I have trouble sustaining the discipline needed to learn it.

behold, thy salvation cometh

Samuel Arbesman thinks we have a problem: too many specialists, not enough generalists. The age of the polymath is over, but we can bring it back! How? Why, we just need to give people the right tools, that is, we need to “embrace the machines” — the computing machines — and teach everybody to code. “Far from being a tech-centric perspective, coding connects ideas across fields.” When tech is everything, then we won’t be tech-centric anymore.

So we see once more that technological solutionism has a response to every problem — but it’s always exactly the same response. Salvation is sola codes, by code alone. In code we trust. Code is the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to polymathy except by it. Blessed be the knowledge of the code. At the compilation of the code every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that code is Lord. Amen.

learning with books!

So today on Twitter I asked:

Best book on CSS for a n00b?
— Alan Jacobs (@ayjay) September 27, 2013

I mainly got recommendations for websites, which is cool, but some of the people who recommended websites were extremely adamant that it is totally wrong to try to learn CSS from a book. “Books are probably the absolute worst way to learn tech/web/coding stuff.” “Books on a topic like this are a total waste of time.” (See what I mean by “extremely adamant”?) The denunciations of books on CSS made two points: that any book will be incomplete — which isn’t really relevant to someone just trying to learn the basics — and that books are outdated upon publication — which might be slightly more relevant, but not much. I’d be looking for a very recent book, and the CSS standards, especially for the kinds of minimal styling that I’d be interested in, aren’t changing that fast.

But you know, I could use one or more of the many online CSS tutorials out there — so why wouldn’t I? They would be free, which a book would not be; they’re instantly accessible. Seems like a no-brainer.

Except I’ve discovered from my pretty minimal past experience with coding — or the closest I’ve come to coding — that I really struggle with online guides and learn much more easily from books. Part of it is what Erin Kissane said:

@ayjay I find most new skills easiest to learn when I can explore specifics (via experiment) *and* understand abstractions (via reading).
— erin kissane (@kissane) September 27, 2013

But I also seem to find it visually more helpful to have a book open next to my computer rather than switch back and forth between online resources and my text editor. If I can keep my text editor open and visible at all times and then cut my eyes back and forth to the page with instructions and examples, I can stay better focused on the task — and on what’s wrong with the stuff I’ve typed. I can also highlight passages in the book, underline or annotate them, dog-ear the pages, go back and forth quickly between one section and the next…. By contrast, online tutorials are mechanistic, relentlessly linear, and controlling of my pace and my attention.

I learned most of what I know about AppleScript from a book; ditto with LaTeX; and I think I’ve had so little success learning my first real programming language, Python, because I haven’t found the right book. (I’m going to try this one next.) But I’ve never had any success at all learning from online tutorials.

YMMV, of course. Which is my chief point.