tractariana

[tractariana]

all tech is frankenstein

Coding in PHP reminds me of Frankenstein. Especially whenever you inject it into HTML. The verb itself is so medical: inject. The HTML is no longer HTML but HTML injected with PHP: a Frankenstein monster, a Borg. It looks grotesque but it works.

But maybe all coding and tech is Frankensteinian. The original novel was a hodgepodge of perspectives and styles, the form of the narrative reflecting the form of Frankenstein’s monster. Note that the novel in question is also the first modern science fiction novel. Not only does it describe technology, it is technology.

Also, the more I get into group software development using git, the more Frankensteinian the code gets. All code is not only a hodgepodge of different languages, it’s also a hodgepodge of creators—again, not dissimilar to the monster, who was stitched together from different bodies.

Where does this analogy lead us? Our humanity, grotesque as its container may be, is still our humanity. Love your code. It is by us and of us. And it will come back to haunt us.

[tractariana]

object octopus

Programming is great for Freudians.

In programming, you’re always trying to determine and test for what is being returned by some functioning of the code: not just what the data itself is but what kind of data it happens to be. Is it a number, a boolean, a string, an object? Is it returning the expected number, boolean, etc.?

Often, ‘nothing’ seems to be returned. Coders talk about ghost variables, signifiers that point to no signified (a deleted or repressed signified).

But like Freudians, knowledgeable coders are aware that there are many kinds of nothing. Depending on the programming language, zero, null, undefined, and empty string (“”) can all mean different things and lead the program to behave differently. An object can be empty and there at the same time. This is, obviously, very comfortable ground for disciples of the psychodynamic school.

On the other hand, Marxist critics would probably make bad coders.

[tractariana]

sisyphus and the machine

1.

‘I feel like I’m being turned into a machine.’

I hated translating. The only thing interesting about it was the hate I felt for it: why did I feel this way? Was it the sense of going nowhere, the repetitiveness of the job? 

2.

To fear being ‘turned into a machine’ is a common enough refrain, describing a process formalized by Marx and his many acolytes in their theories regarding reification. But do coders feel as if they are turning into machines? They do work with machines all day, and coders have a reputation for being anti-social, a most inhuman trait. 

But I have a feeling they don’t. The whole point of programming is, well, to program: to make machines do the repetitive, machine-y bits so human beings are left with the work that machines can’t do, like interpretive dance or novel-writing. 

3.

But it’s a funny thing these days: there are machines now that ‘do’ both, interpretive dance and novel-reading (perhaps not at the same time). However, a machine can’t appreciate interpretive dance or novels—not to our knowledge, at least—and it’s this appreciative faculty where our supposed humanity really lies, not in the creation of the object-of-appreciation per se.  

But a machine isn’t a machine because it does repetitive things; such a definition fails to explain why so many people are into, say, knitting or sports. It’s really the mindlessness of the repetition that makes the task machine-like. I was turning into a machine.

A machine is a machine because it doesn’t appreciate what it’s doing. Our appreciation makes us human.

4.

I suppose this is where the ‘human’ in ‘humanities’ comes in. The humanities aren’t about the creation of aesthetic artifacts (like the arts are); the humanities are about the appreciation of them. It is an examination into this appreciation, into that very thing (appreciation) which makes us human. Translation, like criticism, is interesting only insofar as it is a tool for appreciation. And I was simply incapable of appreciating the work I was doing.

5.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He, too, concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain in itself forms a world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

There is potential meaning in “each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain.” As long as Sisyphus is able to appreciate the prospect of such meanings, he will be fine. He will even be happy.

[tractariana]

sapir-whorf and the compiler

I often catch myself thinking of the compiler or interpreter as a person with a particular thought process. I sometimes say, ‘It’s not thinking the way I expect it to think.’

What does this word, this grammar, this syntax really mean to you? I feel like the compiler is an alien whose language I am trying to learn, like in Ted Chiang’s ‘Stories of Your Life,’ a story that takes the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis to its natural conclusion.

In college I would muse how French the French majors were. How German the German, how Japanese the Japanese, etc. This doesn't prove Sapir-Whorf, as there is a degree of self-selection going on in terms of choosing majors: students who are French-y to begin with will choose French anyway.

But assuming it were true, and if I were to do the same—if I were to take Sapir-Whorf to its natural conclusion—would learning computer languages turn swathes of my mind into a compiler? Is that what we’re doing in our coding classes: turning into compilers?

Or: are we turning machines into us? Are we learning their language, or are they learning ours?

[tractariana]

humanities mind

I once had a math tutor accuse me of having ‘humanities mind.’ He said it like it was a disease. Notably, he didn’t seem to enjoy his job, and last I checked he still teaches math for a living.

Perhaps if he had more of a humanities mind, he would’ve had the wherewithal for self-reflection, leading him to make the right life choices.

[tractariana]

psychodynamic html

"The id selector uses the id attribute of an HTML element to select a specific element. The id of an element should be unique within a page, so the id selector is used to select one unique element!" As a Lacanian I found this very confusing.

[tractariana]

yesterday

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. Except it was this morning and it wasn’t Manderley. It was the usual dream of being forced back into school and having to sit my college entrance exams. I could see why my subconscious went back for this one. The day before, I had decided to sign up for five more months of programming classes.

Despite evidence to the contrary, I never thought of myself as a STEM person. I played around with QBASIC and MS Visual Basic as a kid, creating simple games in both. I was one of those 90s kids who built websites from scratch, uploading my pages though a dial-up modem using an FTP client app. Although I hated school math, I was always in the highest-level math classes from middle school onwards. But I thought that was only because I happened to be good at school, not because I was good at math. I thought most of my friends were like me, and that my tech literacy was mundane. And perhaps it was. 

For a STEM person.

After much thought and a few false starts, I heard of the opening of a new programming school, and decided to give it a try for two months. I learned a lot and enjoyed myself, but after this self-imposed trial period was over, I was again hit with doubt: what the hell was I doing? Who did I think I was? Can I really do this? Like Neo in the second Matrix movie, I knew I had already made my decision, and was only trying to understand my decision. Why was I doing this?

I hope this blog shall answer that question in due course. Until that day, I remain: in transition.