During our class discussion, I decided to put myself on the side in favor of pushing humanities students to learn to code. This decision was made because I was kind of conflicted by the question itself. I didn’t believe that for the sake of the field, it was necessary for all students to be forced to learn how to code, but I stayed on the side that they should want to learn to code in order to work within their fields more effectively and more nuanced. My position on the question has not changed from this discussion. After taking both the beginner and intermediate HTML and CSS tutorials on HTML Dog, I realized that coding, which is something that seemed very alien to me, could be easy and accessible with the right guidance and without putting too much pressure on yourself. My take on the question now is that humanities students should learn to code if able. I think the brief tutorials and explanations of what coding can do made me realize that it really is a practice that can be reasonably picked up and would, in my opinion, make humanities research better and more widely available. I believe that if you have the opportunity to further your research skills by picking up a trade, even if at a fundamental level, then why choose not to, and why choose not to teach young aspiring researchers this skill as well?
When I teach courses on new media and electronic literature, I’m not interested in turning my students into professional code monkeys.
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
University of Maryland
From the readings, something that stood out to me and also helped form my opinion is the understanding that the programming and coding processes are nuanced. They can be a means of expression and art beyond being just a tool or a skill, especially one seen as void of artistic expression. I had almost no prior coding experience leading up to completing the tutorial, and even though my opinion didn’t change, I still held some sentiments about it lacking creativity. Through this class and this lab, I believe that I understand that coding can be creative in its own right, and it doesn’t just have to be a tool. However, I will say that for the purpose of humanistic research, it is a very useful and necessary tool. I have included below a short piece of code I was able to muster up after the tutorials, which I will say I had a fun time doing. It was interesting for me to learn a new skill while also getting to express some creativity and actually put into practice some of the digital humanities skills we have learned.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title> An Incredible Website Title </title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to My Incredible Website!</h1>
<p>It's a place for:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reading</li>
<li>Coding</li>
<li>Doing Digital Humanities Stuff and Eating Cookies? </li>
</ul>
<p>Click below to claim your <strong>free imaginary cookie:</strong></p>
<button onclick="alert('You ate the cookie! 🍪 Delicious, wasn\'t it?')">
Claim Cookie
</button>
<p> You're Welcome! - Dylan </p>
</body>
</html>3 thoughts on “Lab 2: Web Development Fundamentals”
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I agree that the question presented in class was divided in a way where most had to pick a stance they wouldn’t necessarily 100% fall into. I also decided I was more for students learning than for them not, and have stayed of that opinion. I also like your cookie code.
I agree, humanities shouldn’t be forced to learn how to code, but they should as it’s another tool that allows you to be creative and experiment with new methods. Even though I am a CS major meaning my opinion may be a bit biased, I still believe I would be in favor of learning how to code. Reading about your positive experience with learning HTML and CSS despite very little prior experience was also really awesome to read about. Well done!
I agree that the question of humanities students learning to code should be an “if able”. It’s a tool that is becoming more vital to be able to understand the basics of and follow other people’s work. I’m interested in the creative uses of code as well, I think that it could have (particularly for writing and poetry) an ability to carry a wider set of semantic meanings than what purely written language can.