Struggling a lot finding a surface between people that develop software, use software, communities concerned find a place that speaks/connects those different worlds
Surface creates a world around it, creates barriers and possibilities
What is missing > world of documentation in software development, often just refers to technicalities, create a generous space to create community, different kind of policies/identities in software development
For project work on a kind of toolkit: a book of spells, recipes, set of tools and practice to think through software documentaiton
three main issues:
1. materiality of software documentation (surfaces used to read it make it)
2. the actors that participate in this idea of software documentation, roles in writing of software
3. idea of economy around software documentation, exchanges that happen, economy of knowledge (knowledge in developing of codes,...) exchanges of different kind of knowledges, a space to reclaim the importance of voices, value of different voices, beside the technical beside meritopractical approach
form:
not sure want to write more?
want to do the opposite of what is told
explore the idea of list as a writing surface
list are a big thing in programming as a structure, data structure, a lot of essays, articles that use code instead of writing (think these things are super-cringe) but would be interesting to abstract some things from code and use them as writing method
use these kind of technics as a writing method
template used in industry, offer different kind of approach about documentation and understand what do they say, what do they do
idea writing as code
example of that writing: ... replace words is writing
find a meaningful way, critical way to use the writing machines
>> do something that my mum could read
how to make sense of it also for others
last year started to work with idea of versioning, take already existing text and change some words to re-orient the context > text about graphic design as world buiidling, took the text and replaced some words and became software as world building
make outlines to start
start with the structure
content is about structure
project proposal more narrative/theoretical
thesis more practical
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## about the form
- data structures (list, loop, conditional, tree) as writing machine
- automatic writing or developing tools to write
- haunted surfaces or how to re-enchant dry formats
## about the contents
ecology of software documentation
more zspecifically in the context of software programming
1. materiality
- what is written?
- making space for the code in the world and viceversa
- kind of language, intensity (level of details), accessibility
- imagine the tone of a discussion around a technical manual: how can we make it more accessible? how can we make it more clear? some jokes not 100% related. technicalities. how could it work for someone with a different background?
- imagine a list, so in a way both ultra-linear and non-linear narration
- develop a writing machine for this. a specific way to write the thesis. that could be (ideas):
- tagging aesthetic:
- a lot of short pieces tagged with different categories
- that could be aggregated by topic, or chronologically or
How do you chose a particular programming language, a coding style, a development environment and ecosystem, an infrastructure where to run the code, and so on? These are not just technical choices, but rather coding contingencies.
These contingencies are situated in precise contexts. Programming then is not just sharing code, but sharing context. It's providing a point of view and a perspective to look at the world, before attempting to get some grip onto it with a script.
> To make sense of multiplicity, we need to think and write in topological ways, discovering methods for laying out a space, for laying out spaces, and for defining paths to walk through these. _[John Law and Annemarie Mol, Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices]_
At the moment I can see it as a feed with a tagging system. The plan is to gather contents and curate them in a non-linear fashion, so instead of following the index as a series of steps, imagine to read it as a coral-like creature, with materials forking and interfering with each other.
These contents will be a mix of diverse registry, from the essayistic to the technical to the anedoctic, in order to have several layers of accessibility. The consistency of the discourse will vary: some parts will be more narrative and some other more scattered.
