A methodology for software development as a form of care.
Research how writing software changes depending on the context and actors involved.
Bring the specificity of three different case studies: coding for oneself, coding for others, coding together with others.
How different nuances of these three settings can inform and resonate one with the other?
Writing software as a form of care instead of a form of control.
What kind of resources, experiences and approaches constitute this practice?
Research how writing software changes depending on the context and actors involved. Bring the specificities of different case studies: coding for oneself, coding for others, coding together with others. How can different nuances of these three settings inform and resonate one with the others?
Elaborate on the idea of care. Care for who and in which way? Care for what and from which perspective? Lay out these different subjects and annotate the ways they interact, reinforce, or dampen each other. Where and how to orientate software development in this chart?
Try to make a public for this practice in subtle ways: how to offer entry points for (or escape routes from) the stereotypical western white male macho programmer? Is it possible to infiltrate the ultra efficient and violent industry of software development, seasoning its own tools? How to intercept some established practices and branch from them? How to publish outside our safe XPUB bubble?
### How do you plan to make it?
The plan is to focus on three parallel case-studies of different nature.
There are three main nodes in the graph of this project. Writing software, taking care, and staying low.
One in which I develop for myself, one in which I develop for someone else, and one in which I develop together with some others.
Not all these projects need to start from scratch. This year could be the chance to inject some awareness and forms of care in already ongoing works.
Writing software and taking care are meant to be moments of research and curation of contents in the form of resources, experiences and approaches. Starting from the assumption that there is no universal solution for writing software, and that coding is always site specific, this research could set some coordinates by looking back at the works made last year and analyze them through the lenses of code and care.
Developing for myself could happen in the context of [Object Oriented Choreography](../ooc-summer-session/), a long-term contemporary dance research with VR. What would it mean to bring XPUB forms of care into that work? How could tools developed for personal needs participate to a broader discourse?
Along with this initial reflection on the first year, the plan is to focus on three case-studies of different nature. One in which I develop for myself, one in which I develop for someone else, and one in which I develop together with some others. These projects will not start from scratch, I
Developing for myself could happen in the context of [Object Oriented Choreography](../ooc-summer-session/), a long-term contemporary dance research with VR and networked media. The team I'm working with for this project is small, and I'm the one in charge of the art direction and interaction design.
Developing for someone else refers to commisioned and freelance work. It could be a way to bring not only the advantages, but also the perspective and cultural dynamics of F/LOSS into commercial practices. My freelance work usually consists in developing websites or interactive application to be used in performative context. It could be a way to orientate specific commision to the development of tools of general use.
Developing togheter with others it's a way to rinegotiate priorities when developing software. How do we value and balance between accessibility, flexibility and sustenaibility? This could happen either collaborating with someone from XPUB (think for example to the [workbook](../workbook/) with supi, the ilizarov projects with gr, etc ) or intercepting some external realities' need to craft together some piece of site-specific software.
Developing togheter with others it's a way to renegotiate priorities when developing software. How do we value and balance between accessibility, flexibility and sustenaibility? This could happen either collaborating with someone from XPUB (think for example to the [workbook](../workbook/) with supi, the ilizarov projects with gr, etc ) or intercepting some external realities' need to craft together some piece of site-specific software.
### What is your timetable?
@ -146,3 +152,5 @@ The practical aspect depends on the second and third case studies. There are som
- Brian Cantwell Smith, On the Origin of Objects
- Bruce Sterling, Shaping Things
- Timothy C. Lethbridge, Susan Elliott Sim, Janice Singer - Software Anthropology: Performing Field Studies in Software Companies
