Both Professor Matthew Kirschenbaum and Evan Donahue make excellent points regarding the utility of coding within the humanities. Both essays are extremely well written, and provide convincing arguments for their given viewpoints. However, Evan Donahue makes a stronger argument by pointing out that the field of computer sciences is vast, and that programming only represents a tiny sliver of a vast and diverse range of disciplines and skill sets. As Donahue points out, the divide between each subfield within the realm of computer sciences is as vast as the divide between every subfield within the humanities, and programming knowledge provides only a narrow skill set. As Donahue himself states, “Programming languages math and algorithms are the discourses used by computer scientists to address their concerns just as psycho analysis ethnography and material culture are some of the discourses used to address the concerns of the humanities… Learning to program should be no more and no less enabling than reading Derrida.” Donahue’s main point is that those who study humanities should only take the time to learn those aspects of computer science that best support them in their chosen field, so that they are able to merge those two skill subsets in order to enhance both. I think that this is a much more reasonable stance to take, considering the growing number of niches within the field of computer science. Programming might be a useful skill for certain individuals within the humanities, but it is likely that the majority of humanities majors would benefit more greatly from learning different skills within the same field. Narrowly focusing on programming above all other computer science skills deprives students the opportunity to learn other skills that they would be more likely to use in the future.
Before this class, I had no prior experience with coding. This was my first experience working with HTML/CSS, and it didn’t come very naturally to me. My general impressions of both programs are that they provide a lot of functionality, but require a lot of practice to truly master. The structure of HTML and CSS seems very logically laid out, but I had difficulty with arranging the various lines of code correctly. Despite this, I eventually figured it out and was able to insert the code into WordPress without much difficulty.