- when the entry points are blocked one has to search for backdoors
- little context for backdoors
- not only to participate in the making of software
- but also to inject values,
```
Here documentation is seen as a surface that could host principles in close contact with algorithms, letting them entangle and shape each other. A way to orientate our instruments towards "non-extractive relationships, but in the meantime, being accountable for the ones they are complicit with." (A Wishlist for Trans\*feminist Servers, 2022)
```placeholder
!!! placeholder ""
- a way to transform coding contingencies? see introduction / move it here?
- programming as a way of sharing context
- what is contingent in this context? (meaning slightly out of reach)
- materiality? text editors? popular languages? economics?
- what can be changed?
```
How do you choose a particular programming language, a coding paradigm, a development environment, an infrastructure where to run the code, and so on? These are not just technical choices, but rather coding contingencies.
@ -48,21 +46,17 @@ The main focus of this chapter is to explore software documentation as a surface
A way to situate programming in specific contexts.
```placeholder
!!! placeholder ""
- to expose people usually out of reach to different contexts
- literacy and exposition to certain concepts
- care vs attention economy
```
If we follow mainstream narratives, programming strives to be purely technical. Immaculate from the sin of politics. It's not rare to read comments online from users that demand to keep politics out from code repositories. Faithful to the western tradition of separate fields of study, coding wants just to be coding. All about performance and speed, new updates and features. A space where all problems are mechanical and can be solved.
But it wouldn't be fair to think that programmers simply don't care. Sometimes it's just a matter of being exposed to certain ways of thinking. Before the bachelor at the Accademy of Fine Arts for example, I've never been exposed to the writings of Donna Haraway, and I had no idea that concepts from feminism could have been so relevant also for me.
```note
!!! note ""
if you cite Haraway better explain why it's important for you etc
```
Here code documentation could work as a backdoor: hacking its way to people that have never been exposed to certain topics. A way to offer an entry points to other worlds, and ground political choices into technical details.
@ -86,12 +80,10 @@ One example is the paradigm of constant availability of the server. Behind every
```note
!!! note ""
maybe more examples from the documentation of queer motto api
```
!!! note "SI16 API"
- SI16 API where ????
- horizontal and vernacular
- after queer motto api
@ -102,9 +94,8 @@ maybe more examples from the documentation of queer motto api
To inject context in software is required to operate at different scales. Within both public and private dimensions, with technical and social frameworks. During a workshop for example, people meet face to face. Here togetherness can glue technicalities together, questioning reproduction of knowledge and its power dynamics. (See for example _Feminists Federating_, mara karagianni, ooooo, nate wessalowski, vo ezn in Toward a Minor Tech - A peer reviewed Newspaper vol 12, 2023) (Note that the opposite effect is also true, with technicalities as paratext conditioning how people are together)
```note
!!! note "service and proximity"
the concept of service could be link with 360 degree of proximity
```
code documentation is knowledge transmission, traditionally passed from top to bottom as in comunicating vessels
@ -115,7 +106,7 @@ fluid processes - not purely technical architecture, but affective infrastructur
process of collective learning and knowledge transmission 360 degrees of proximities
```placeholder
!!! placeholder "360 degrees of proximity"
call with artemis and mika
- ask to record for note taking (not published)
@ -140,7 +131,6 @@ pls use our nicknames
estragon
e.zn
```
### Representation specs
@ -167,17 +157,6 @@ In the discussions around the development of this open source project, contribut
Examples from p5.js documentation.
- bc the concept of p5js is continuous iterations
- documentation better surface to address the prob
- open to contributions to address the issue
(Actually, not happened yet. But there are pull requests with some of these integrations awaiting to be merged with the main branch.) `(ok rephrase it not to write pull request and merge)`
---
from my side: last year when developing my space on the soupboat i decided not to display images if they don't come with alt text
decision like these aren't really different from how a type system work, or how the syntax of a certain function is written. everything has been decided by someone. these decisions can create or claim new and safe spaces for participating to programming practice, or validate this participation
@ -235,7 +214,7 @@ In the essay, they highlight how poetry often does offer rich context and a worl
In the Screenless Office, the bureau aesthetic, with its collective imagery of characters, situations, and power dynamics, becomes a personal interaction design framework. Here the system is structured enough to articulate a complex application in a coherent, clear and legible way. And yet, the cosmology of the office remains open to contribuitions coming from elsewhere, say, another departement such as the `Canteen of the Screenless Office` inaugurated during a workshop with Howell at XPUB, with all its peculiar set of characters, aesthetics and documentation practices.
- si16 api docstrings
!!! note "si16 api docstrings"
Our first project in XPUB was Special Issue 16: a collective exploration of natural language processing with a vernacular turn. It was published as an API, offering several functions to users to play with strings and texts.
@ -250,4 +229,4 @@ Soon and Cox prepared these lessons for students enrolled in a design institutio
