Software Takes Command reading group

[Dylan]

This is a new thread for reading and discussing Lev Manovich's Software Takes Command.

If anyone has pacing suggestions let them be known.

For the next week, let's focus on the introduction, which is about 40 pages. It seems to lay out the intellectual background and Manovich's previous work.

Look forward to reading everyone's thoughts.

[Joseph Caudle]

On Sep 5, 2013, at 8:23 AM, Dylan <dylan.lede...@gmail.com> wrote:

Look forward to reading everyone's thoughts.

Me too! (Although, I'm also kind of most interested in actually making an online reading group work!)

[Dylan]

Here are my somewhat scattered notes on the Intro.

Manovich's driving question: "In short: What is 'media' after software?"

His focus on the early computing pioneers (Engelbart, Kay, Nelson) is incredibly important I think. This was a blind spot in my computer science education which I've been slowly filling in on my own time. What are people's favorite computer history books from that era?

"Computers and software are not just 'technology' but rather the new medium in which we can think and imagine differently." - Summarizing Rheingolds *Tools for Thought*

This is, personally, one of the reasons I find working with software to be so rewarding. Unpacking some of the intellectual history behind it is a worthy goal.

As a web programmer, its interesting to me that Manovich credits the rise in popularity of scripting languages and web APIs as a factor in the increase of sofware studies. As powerful software creation tools are made accessible to those with humanities training, they get a new perspective on computing.

Going along that vein, he compares the challenge of early 19th century photography with todays programming, saying "Clearly we are very far from such simplicity in programming. But I do not see any logical reasons why programming cannot one day become equally easy." I know this is a huge topic, with lots of digital ink already spilled, but what are your quick thoughts?

The book will focus on "Cultural Software", because that is what Manovich has experience with. He has 7 characteristics of cultural software, but basically they concern the creation or consumption of cultural artifacts, or human communication. He also notes the need for close study of "grey" software, or hidden infrastructural code. See Alexander Galloway's "Protocol" for a good theoretical take on networking.

He mentions the rise of "data" as a sexy term, but it seems like he won't address it to much. Disappointing, but I'm sure someone is already working on that book.

"This shift from messages to platforms was in the center of the Web's transformation...The result was named Web 2.0." Nice one line characterization of Web 2.0 I thought. He goes on to discuss the culture of rapid change on the web, but neglects an account of how AJAX and Web API's made it happen.

Manovich notes that, unlike Hollywood and old movies, the tech industry "does not derive any profits from the old software - and therefore it does nothing to promote its history." Key to tech's ahistorical culture.

The intro also has a very good list of books or journals where similar work is taking place. Added a lot to my personal "to-read" list.

[Andreas Scheinert]

Hi there,

Im though the introduction and in the first part of part one but there are already some things to note:

The writing style is something you have to get used to (at least in my case). Some examples:

The Author repeats multiple times names of software tools like Adobe Photoshop, Google Earth, etc.

That in itself would be OK but the style of giving much too often more then 1 or 2 examples but instead citing every time 

Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator 3Ds Max (insert 1 line spam here)

just feels like 'visual spam' to me. 

I give him the favor of acknowledging that he writes about a difficult topic. But there is (IMO) no reason to resort to endless meaningless repetition.

He should create an Index for his media software list and for the names of the social sites ( twitter, fb...) and just refer to that index that would be relieving. Plus he'd see how often he refers to that. 

Now for something interesting to get out of that first part of the book:

"All intellectual work is now software..."  

The fusion of other, old media into digital, computer media is certainly something which is something noteworthy. If not at least for its future implications.

By reading it becomes clear that most of the time the author spend with a computer was through media editing tools. In fact he put the main focus of the book onto the "application" user instead of looking at "the programmer", because there are far more app. user than programmers.

Interestingly he mentions that fiddling with HTML and pre packaged javascript is NOT programming. 

My first response to this was: That distinction is simply wrong or irrelevant. Every user IS a programmer.

If we look today at efforts like awelonblue.wordpress.com/‎

We can see people working on methods for almost unconsciously programming while using a program. To scale between a level which requires almost no level of intention

to thinking in the most abstract and recursive mathematical ways is the future of programming. 

To understand what programming is, one might consult dijkstra for he always emphasized programming without a computer. Because indeed programming is thinking, or an expression of your thoughts.

So on this regard lets hope the future developments like this:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/07/the_u_k_s_year_of_code_director_lottie_dexter_doesn_t_know_how_to_code.html

will understand what programming is and teach it to younger generations , like so:

https://twitter.com/IrisClasson/status/431475733828235264

On page 38 he claims: "users can also examine the code of open source software to fully understand its assumptions and key technologies".

That maybe a naive thought, try to go ahead and read the full linux kernel source code, I'd say before you finish it would have been updated so you might restart. ( one might say this could be a reason why alan kay says that linux is a distraction)

COMPLEXITY is a non-trivial aspect of software which open source software is not immune to, quite the contrary. 

Finally on page 58 he blames alan kay and the people at parc for inventing software which was uniformly accessible which later created "media software" because the later "first" mac software did imitate old software. See the gap here?

Alan Kay ALWAYS points out the his original part of the software at parc was quite different from what went later into the industry. 

Maybe he will clarify that but to me that statement is wrong and by reading material from Alan Kay he should notice that. 

        

My conclusion until now: it is worth reading (which is why I will continue reading), but takes some effort :)

regards Andreas

[Andreas Scheinert]

Hi everyone,

So I have been into the book now for  150 pages (about half through) and I have mixed feelings I'd say. So the writing style of the author seems very disruptive and repetitive to me. But after a while I guess you get used to his style and now (after 150 pages!) he gets to some good conclusions, like how media and software relate to each other. What role our sensomotoric senses play in experiencing media and how that relates to the ( a?) basic theory of digital information by shannon.

So after getting used to the repetition I'm looking forward for the rest of the book.   

Am Donnerstag, 5. September 2013 14:23:43 UTC+2 schrieb Dylan: