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## 1. Coding Contingencies _(2000)_
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Situate software as cultural object and propose documentation as a surface to explore it.
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### 1.1 Context around software, besides technicality
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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.
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Personal decisions, trending technologies, curiosity and boredom, to name a few. A talk that touch on esolangs as form of frugality, a collegue passionate about live coding that drags you to an algorave night, a crypto-boyfriend, the tech stack of a company, a drastic turn of events, etc. etc.
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These contingencies are situated in specific contexts.
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Programming then is not just sharing code, but sharing context. A significant statement about our relationship to the world, and how we organize our understanding of it (Ulman, 1998). A point of view and a perspective to look at reality, before attempting to get some grip onto it with a script. A way to deal with both the software and hardware circumstances of code (Marino, 2020), but also create space and relations with _non-code entities_ (Mackenzie, 2006).
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It's an approach that helps us to think about software as a cultural object. Something "deeply woven into contemporary life –economically, culturally, creatively, politically– in manners both obvious and nearly invisible." (Software Studies, 2009), and not just as technical tool existing in a vacuum.
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### 1.2 Introduce issues around software
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Outline a map of critical issues related to software culture, grouping them in three main flavours:
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1. **Biased and hostile environments**
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- Toxic masculinity
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- encoded chauvinism
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- western monoculture
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2. **Evergrowing complexity**
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- Intimidating learning curve
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- disproportion of means
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- mistification
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3. **The universal solution™**
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- Techno solutionism
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- gray tech
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- ideology
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### 1.3 Propose documentation as a surface to address these issues
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1. Welcoming diverse knowledges
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2. Lowering barriers and create entry points
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3. Orientate software in the world
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- _(500)_
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