Always Already Programming An Article by Melanie Hoff gist.github.com Everyone who interacts with computers has in important ways always already been programming them. Every time you make a folder or rename a file on your computer, the actions you take through moving your mouse and clicking on buttons, translate into text-based commands or scripts which eventually translate into binary. Why are the common conceptions of what a programmer and user is so divorced from each other? The distinction between programmer and user is reinforced and maintained by a tech industry that benefits from a population rendered computationally passive. If we accept and adopt the role of less agency, we then make it harder for ourselves to come into more agency. programminginterfacestechnology
The plan must anticipate all that is needed Ebenezer Howard set spinning powerful and city-destroying ideas: He conceived that the way to deal with the city’s functions was to sort and sift out of the whole certain simple uses, and to arrange each of these in relative self-containment. And he conceived of good planning as a series of static acts; in each case the plan must anticipate all that is needed and be protected, after it is built, against any but the most minor subsequent changes. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities Same name in the same basket planningfunction