I think coding should be learned by humanities students as it’s a powerful tool that can be used in addition to the analytical methods commonly used. Coding is something that is not restricted to only the realm of computer science. It is an interdisciplinary tool that is used across various fields. On top of that, coding and programming are more than simply learning about sorting methods, arrays, variables, and spending hours debugging code. As Kirschenbaum writes, “Programming is about choices and constraints, and about how you choose to model some select slice of the world around you in the formal environment of a computer.” By understanding how to code and program, you have the ability to be creative in what you want to create.
I’ve had decent coding experience prior to this class, both through taking classes here at Carleton as well as teaching myself. I’ve had some experience in Python, Java, C, Scheme, HTML, CSS, and Perl. The tutorials on HTML Dog were better in comparison to other tutorials I’ve followed in the past, and they showed that there are so many things that you can do with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This is why I argue that coding and programming should be learned by humanities students. By learning to code, I don’t mean that you have to learn every programming language on the planet, but rather, you should learn languages that will further improve the current methods of humanities research. For example, learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript could be extremely useful to be able to create a webpage storing metadata about a particular project. Learning how these languages work also allows for the modifying of existing code rather than making something from scratch.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<!-- An extremely basic webpage created by Shalim Montes displaying simple features on January 19, 2025-->
<style>
.heading {
color: white;
font-size: 15ppx;
background-color: black;
text-align: center;
}
.statement {
font-family: Arial;
font-weight: bold;
}
</style>
<html>
<head>
<title>
Coding is Cool
</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1 class="heading">
Coding is a multidisciplinary tool that should be learned
</h1>
<p class="statement">
By learning tools like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, one can create digital archives of information that can
be used by the public. They can also be modified to be more accesible/readable for various different groups.
</p>
<p>
Here is a picture of a puppy!
</p>
<img src="https://www.dailypaws.com/thmb/gPnzw94GK-pwekq-xZyLbGYv850=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/jack-russell-terrier-puppy-981611246-2000-1c47d18ddab04c09820e03d59dd3ee95.jpg"
width="550" height="290" alt="Cute Puppy">
<p>
The link below takes you to some tutorials for Javascript, HTML, and CSS
</p>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@SuperSimpleDev/videos" target="_blank">
Link to tutorials
</a>
</body>
</html>This code is an extremely simple version of a webpage meant to show some of the many things you can do with it as well as the various customizations and tweaks you can make depending on the audience it is intended for.
