We can regard the machine that will run the software as the primary audience. It’s more interesting, though, to think of software in terms of audience. Software is very goal oriented: code is written to accomplish some purpose, whether to calculate trajectories for a rocket, display an image, encrypt a message, or simply print out a text like “Hello, world!” (the classic first step in learning a new programming language, invented by Brian Kernighan, Princeton Professor of Computer Science and a member of the Center for Digital Humanities’ Executive Committee). It turns out those are also useful ways to think about writing code. Like any skill, it may come more easily to some than others, and some people may enjoy it more than others, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it.īecause I want to continue to improve my own writing skills, I took an advanced writing class this summer, and the instructor, Princeton Writes’ director, John Weeren, reminded us to frame our writing in terms of audience and goals. Just as anyone can learn to write, or get better at writing, anyone can learn to code or get better at coding. As someone interested in both literature and computers, the idea of coding as writing stuck with me – but I would take this one step further. The author’s takeaway was that, as with writing, some people will be more gifted than others. I read an article years ago comparing writing software to creative writing. Trained in both English literature and computer science, she is well positioned to explore the nexus of coding and writing. Rebecca Sutton Koeser is the Lead Developer at Princeton’s Center for Digital Humanities, designing and building customized software in the service of scholarly projects such as the Princeton Prosody Archive and the Shakespeare and Company Project. Coding is Writing by Rebecca Sutton Koeser
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