Moderate Expectations, Tolerable Disappointments: Claus Huitfeldt and Julianne Nyhan (original) (raw)
Related papers
Computers and The Humanities, 1995
This paper focusses on the types of questions that are raised in the encoding of historical documents. Using the example of a 17th century Scottish Sasine, the authors show how TEI-based encoding can produce a text which will be of major value to a variety of future historical researchers. Firstly, they show how to produce a machine-readable transcription which would be comprehensible to a word-processor as a text stream filled with print and formatting instructions; to a text analysis package as compilation of named text segments of some known structure; and to a statistical package as a set of observations each of which comprises a number of defined and named variables. Secondly, they make provision for a machine-readable transcription where the encoder's research agenda and assumptions are reversible or alterable by secondary analysts who will have access to a maximum amount of information contained in the original source.
The hard work of software history
RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts and …, 2001
A few years ago, the literary and media historian Friedrich Kittler opened an essay called "There Is No Software" with a "rather sad statement." In his view, "the bulk of written texts -including this text -do not exist anymore in perceivable time and space but in a computer memory's transistor cells." Coming from a scholar who had until then situated the cultural meaning of literary texts in discourse networks dependent on technologies of inscription (writing, gramophone, typewriter, computer) and the materiality of communication, this remark captures the essence not just of a technological change but of a significant cultural shift. At the end of the 20 th century, according to Kittler, texts -and even software itself -have vanished. Our text-producing gestures merely correspond to codes built on silicon and electrical impulses; the texts themselves no longer exist materially, and indeed we have ceased to write them: "All code operations … come down to absolutely local string manipulations and that is, I am afraid, to signifiers of voltage differences." 1 Following Kittler's train of thought, we should wonder how libraries and archives will locate electronic or virtual replacements for the acts and artifacts of writing that occupied Goethe at the turn of the 18 th century or Einstein at the close of the 19th.
The digital story: Binary code as a cultural text
2002
The proliferation of digital technology and the emergence of digital code as the new dominating medium of information storage are acknowledged to be of concern for social scientists and cultural theorists. The search for meaning in digital code tends to favor studies of how it is consumed in the contemporary context, and how contemporary actors construct meaningful experiences with it. Contrary to the intentions of its inventors, changes in society accompanying the proliferation of digital technology are often treated as undesirable and even accidental. Often ignored are the philosophical meanings intentionally embedded into and connoted by the code, and how the technical and philosophical attributes of digital technology come together to create the possibility of experience for the user.
From Manuscripts to Programming Languages: An Archivist Perspective
Lecture Notes in Computer Science
This paper presents the archival treatment of documentation produced by IFIP Working Group 2.1, Algorithmic Languages and Calculi as kept by former chairman Willem van der Poel (1962-69) and Chris Cheney. It highlights the importance of archival treatment based on standards such as International Standard for Archival Description-ISAD(G) and the International Standard Archival Authority Record (Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families)-ISAAR-(CPF) both issued by the International Council on Archives, the Portuguese Guidelines for Archival Description ODA and Encoded Archival Description EAD. The archived collection enables dissemination and effective access to the information for research and in-depth knowledge of computer history and specifically programming languages and formal methods. The paper also addresses the issues of the long-term preservation of archival records produced today in their various formats and the importance of contributing to preserving collective memory and enriching the knowledge about the human society.
Review of 'Computation and the Humanities: towards an Oral History of Digital Humanities
Reviews in History, 2018
Over the past years, there has been a lot of debate around the nature of scholarship in the area of Humanities Computing or, more recently, Digital Humanities (DH); more specifically, there have been several attempts to define it and identify its disciplinary characteristics.(1) Despite disagreements in terms of its definition, though, the field has now reached a stage where it is being increasingly institutionalised, with centres and practitioners all over the world and courses teaching some of its core principles and methods. Yet, even though DH-related scholarship has been practiced since the mid-20th century, only recently has interest focussed on the history of the subject, important events or principal figures. As the authors of the book Computation and the Humanities: Towards an Oral History of Digital Humanities argue, we still know very little about the origins of the field: 'Indeed, our understanding of the history of the field can, at the present time, be best described as a shattered mosaic of uncertain but intricate design.' (p. 10) We are informed that documenting the history of DH is an essential part of understanding its diversity and reach as well as how it might progress in the future; besides, recording and studying key moments from the past has been a long established practice in other academic areas, such as the History of Science. Considering the above points, this is a good time for retrospection on the development of the field and the achievements of its founding members, as well as the challenges they met. However, in the first chapter, it is clearly argued that given the complexities involved in defining the fieldincluding its inherently interdisciplinary nature, different scholarly attitudes and international character-it may be more appropriate to think of 'histories' rather than 'a history' of DH. At this point, it should be mentioned that this book is based on work done for the project 'Hidden Histories: Computing and the Humanities [2]'. The project focuses on how computing technologies have been applied to humanistic work since 1949 through collecting evidence that demonstrate the context within which early Humanities