description: The secret plan to graduate - graduation project proposal
slug: gpp
title: Graduation Project Proposal
title: Situated Docs
---
## What do you want to make?
A list of devices to explore _software documentation_, that is the process of sharing knowledge and making worlds around software.
Compile a list of resources to explore the _documentation of coding related practices_ from a community-based perspective, that is the process of sharing knowledge and making worlds together around _situated software_ (Shirky, 2004).
These devices will be of various nature: tools, thoughts, anecdotes, excercises, prompts, secrets, ... They will offer entry points to articulate _software documentation_ as a form of care.
These resources will be of various nature: tools, thoughts, anecdotes, excercises, prompts, strategies, ... They will offer entry points to articulate _software documentation_ as a form of care.
Some elements of the list will relate to the materiality and surfaces where documentation is hosted,
To work within the constraints of a structure such as the list will help to think through the complexity of dealing with a double unknown: the one of software and the one of situatedness. This complexity will hopefully be preserved and encoded in the relations between different items.
<!-- which kind of approach with this materiality? -->
(Imagine a [GitHub list](https://github.com/everestpipkin/tools-list) gradually branching like a coral reef, with the items _interfering_ with each other, in something that resembles more that classic list from Borges than a dry index of references.)
while others will be more entangled with the actors involved in the process.
Some elements of the list will relate to the materiality and surfaces where documentation is hosted, while others will engage more with the actors and frameworks entangled in the process.
<!-- again, which kind of approach? -->
To work within the constraints of a structure such as the list will help to think through the complexity of the topic. This complexity will hopefully be preserved and encoded in the relations between different items.
--Following to the idea that items in a list aren't necessarily responses to the same questions, yet they hang togheter (Law, Mol 2002)
_Software documentation_ is not just a list of technical procedures, but also a matter of providing context and orientate code in the world. In the same way, the list is meant to be a texture where to weave together multiple voices and diverse registry, in order to re-enchant the making of software.
<!-- what does it mean to re-enchant? -->
<!-- more about the fact that the list is open and just a starting point? -->
> "A list doesn't have to impose a single mode of ordering on what is included in it. Items in the list aren't necessarily responses to the same questions but may hang together in other ways... a list differs from a classification in that it recognizes its incopleteness. It doesn't even need to seek completeness. If someone comes along with something to add to the list, something that emerges as important, this may indeed be added to it." _[John Law and Annemarie Mol, Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices]_
> "A list doesn't have to impose a single mode of ordering on what is included in it. Items in the list aren't necessarily responses to the same questions but may hang together in other ways... a list differs from a classification in that it recognizes its incopleteness. It doesn't even need to seek completeness. If someone comes along with something to add to the list, something that emerges as important, this may indeed be added to it." \_[John Law and Annemarie Mol, Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices]
## Why do you want to make it?
@ -143,10 +138,8 @@ To make place for code turns to be a necessary act of care in the process of sha
## References/bibliography
Start from here
- Fuller, M ed. (2008) Software Studies: A Lexicon, MIT Press
- Ullman, E (2013) Close to the machine: Technophilia and its Discontents, Pushkin Press
- Fuller, M. ed. 2008. Software Studies: A Lexicon. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
- Ullman, E. (2013) Close to the machine: Technophilia and its Discontents. London, England: Pushkin Press
- Law, J ed. and Mol, A ed. (2002) Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices, Duke University Press Books
@ -157,24 +150,26 @@ And then a list of possible references
<!--- Hayles, N K (2005) My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts, University of Chicago Press -->
- Sterling, B (2005) Shaping Things, MIT Press
<!--- Mackenzie, A (2006) Cutting Code; Software and Sociality, International Academic Publisher -->
<!--- Suchman, L A (1987) Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication, Cambridge University Press -->
<!-- Balibar, É (2020) On Universals: Constructing and Deconstructing Community, Fordham University Press -->
<!--- Cantwell Smith, B (1996) On the Origin of Objects, Bradfor Book -->
<!--- Sterling, B (2005) Shaping Things, MIT Press -->
<!--- Mackenzie, A (2006) Cutting Code; Software and Sociality, International Academic Publisher -->
<!--- Suchman, L A (1987) Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication, Cambridge University Press -->
<!-- Balibar, É (2020) On Universals: Constructing and Deconstructing Community, Fordham University Press -->
<!--- Cantwell Smith, B (1996) On the Origin of Objects, Bradfor Book -->
<!--- Knuth, D E (1973) The Art of Computer Programming, Addison-Wesley -->
- Knuth, D E (1992) Literate Programming, Center for the Study of Language and Information
<!--- Knuth, D E (1992) Literate Programming, Center for the Study of Language and Information -->
- Brodie, L (1984) Thinking Forth, Punchy Publising
- Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, "On Software, or the Persistence of Visual Knowledge" (2005) Grey Room. 18
<!--- Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, "On Software, or the Persistence of Visual Knowledge" (2005) Grey Room. 18-->
- Lethbridge, Chantelle & Sim, Susan & Singer, Janice. (1999). Software Anthropology: Performing Field Studies in Software Companies.
- Crowston, Kevin and Howison, James, "The Social Structure of Open Source Software Development Teams" (2003). School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship. 123.
<!--- Lethbridge, Chantelle & Sim, Susan & Singer, Janice. (1999). Software Anthropology: Performing Field Studies in Software Companies.-->
<!--- Crowston, Kevin and Howison, James, "The Social Structure of Open Source Software Development Teams" (2003). School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship. 123.-->
- Shirky, C (2004) [Situated Software](https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2004-03-30-shirky-situatedsoftware.html)
