These slides were part of my presentation in session H.18 "Writing text, writing code, writing connections" at the Conference on College Composition & Communication (4Cs) in Atlanta, GA (April 2011). More information at http://bit.ly/gQpszQ

1. Everyone's a Coder NowReading and Writing Technical Code Julie Meloni University of Virginia Library CCCC 2011 // 8 April 2011 // Atlanta jcmeloni@virginia.edu // @jcmeloni

2. about Critical code studies CONTEXT N. Katherine Hayleson Media Specific Analysis: “all texts are instantiated and that the nature of the medium in which they are instantiated matters” From “Print Is Flat, Code Is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis”

5. Assembly languages

6. Procedural languages

7. Object-oriented languages

8. Declarative programming

9. Literate programmingIt’s like living in the Roman Empire without knowing Latin.

11. Annotating code

12. Live reading live code

13. Investigating “who reads code”

15. Coders, development history, funders, research questions, language, paratexts, social and economic effects

16. Software itself

17. Procedures, structures, programming paradigm

18. Individual lines

20. Social implications, world representations, aesthetics, impact on race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economic status

21. Tactics

23. WHO READS CODE? mathematicians reading for beauty craftsman reading for elegance customers reading to make a purchase decision managers reading for quarterly job evaluations hackers reading for exploits amateurs and hobbyists and students ...making their first web page ...copying some other script kiddy ...or just trying to learn to think differently lawyers and expert witnesses ...looking for a DUI acquittal in a breathalyzer ...impugning the code or security of a voting machine in a recount ...trying to define an IP violation in an open source OS easter-egg hunters ...collecting trivia from code ...harvesting data and media assets from code ...indexing business contacts from code ...participating in ARGs and viral marketing campaigns in code

24. WHO READS CODE? Everyone reads code because code is all around us. source code written and read by humans -> compiled code executed by machines -> "technical code" or “the unexamined cultural assumptions literally designed into the technology itself“ From Andrew Feenburg’sAlternate Modernity

26. virtuous or deceitful

27. conscientious or negligent

28. egalitarian or discriminatoryCommunity Practices: Sharing code / Performing code / Forking code

29. WHO WRITES CODE? Everyone writes code, knowingly or not.

32. Composition and rhetoric (as a field) has much to offer the world of programming.