cover

notes

meta-questions


the aesthetics of clarity in executable source code

are the aesthetics of clarity language-dependent?

“experientialism” / experiential realism

questions of clarity vs. simplicity (how often do they correspond? oppose?) - is one within time, or within space, or within people?

semantics? -> programming languages have semantics (either denotational or operational, stratchey) -> operational is whatever the machine says, and we can realize/describe/use a sympbol without understanding it

understanding the symbol vs. understanding what the symbol refers to

there is always a bit of giving up the understanding (linux kernel, APIs, etc.). does it remove the essence or in contrary highlight it?

the role of case studies: develop an outline from looking at code, then confront that outline (which will probably be multifaceted) with case studies (2-3)

what do programmers have been implicitly saying in their discourses about code?

what is the difference between poetics and aesthetics? poetics put together an effect (formal, subjective) vs. aesthetics are more universal, inherent, contemplative?

draft a couple of paragraphs on machine understanding ++ the difference between poetics and aesthetics


questions

tools

typology

object (object of code’s discourse)


thoughts

Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance (statement, question, or command); the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus. It may otherwise reflect other elements of language that may not be encoded by grammar or by choice of vocabulary.* (wiki)

problematiques importantes: dispositifs et mediations

concepts / frames

structure

acknowledgment of socio-cultural context within which code poetry emerges, then formal examination of language through which these are written, and circling back towards what these formal uses have to contribute about the purpose/meaning of writing source code poetry (communities, hackers, exploitative economic systems, etc.), and allow for a new perspective on contemporary literature.

art is a breach in the system

pat Is there something that makes something inherently beautiful? As relations to humans/human condition of that time -studying tools.

speed run vs. 100% of the game vs. elegant gaming

which aesthetic standards are set by the machine vs. which aesthetic standards are set by human social context?

does each type of software have different aesthetic standards?

what is the aesthetic of a semantic system that is supposed to be understood by both humans and machines?

beautiful proofs in geometry?

how beautiful code defines its own beauty?

corpuses

the programming languages - esolangs have a “wimpmode”