The Software Arts (Software Studies)

**An alternative history of software that places the liberal arts at the very center of software's evolution.** In __The Software Arts__ , Warren Sack offers an alternative history of computing that places the arts at the very center of software's evolution. Tracing the origins of software to eighteenth-century French encyclopedists' step-by-step descriptions of how things were made in the workshops of artists and artisans, Sack shows that programming languages are the offspring of an effort to describe the mechanical arts in the language of the liberal arts. Sack offers a reading of the texts of computing--code, algorithms, and technical papers--that emphasizes continuity between prose and programs. He translates concepts and categories from the liberal and mechanical arts--including logic, rhetoric, grammar, learning, algorithm, language, and simulation--into terms of computer science and then considers their further translation into popular culture, where they circulate as forms of digital life. He considers, among other topics, the "arithmetization" of knowledge that presaged digitization; today's multitude of logics; the history of demonstration, from deduction to newer forms of persuasion; and the post-Chomsky absence of meaning in grammar. With __The Software Arts__ , Sack invites artists and humanists to see how their ideas are at the root of software and invites computer scientists to envision themselves as artists and humanists. Contents......Page 8 Series Foreword......Page 10 Foreword: Software as a Mode of Thinking—An Introduction......Page 12 Acknowledgments......Page 18 1. Introduction......Page 22 Apple’s Artists......Page 23 Computing and the Arts......Page 24 Computing and Engineering......Page 25 Is Computing a Science?......Page 26 Gender Diversity......Page 28 Computing and Numbers......Page 29 Computing and the Liberal Arts......Page 30 A Short History of the Liberal Arts......Page 31 Translation and the Liberal Arts......Page 35 Translation and Information Technologies......Page 36 Translation and Science and Technology Studies......Page 38 The Software Arts and the Liberal Arts of Language......Page 39 Stakes and Claims......Page 40 On the Limits of Translation......Page 41 Problems with Perfect Languages......Page 42 Ideologies and Equalities......Page 43 Translation as Imperfect......Page 44 Actor-Network Theory and Software Studies......Page 45 Close Readings......Page 46 The Organization of the Book......Page 47 2. Translation......Page 52 Fetishism and Disavowal......Page 53 Identity, Equality, and Assignment......Page 55 Digital Convergence and the Power to Assign Equivalences......Page 56 Translation into the Perfect (Programming) Language......Page 57 Digital Ideology and Digital Life......Page 59 The Computational Condition = Digital Ideology + Digital Life......Page 60 From Media Studies to Actor-Network Theory......Page 61 Translation and the “Ductions” of Michel Serres......Page 62 Translation and Actor-Network Theory......Page 64 Latour’s DNA and the Double Helix......Page 65 Translations of Hilbert’s Decision Problem into and out of Computer Science......Page 66 A Definition of Ideology......Page 70 The In(tro)duction: On Being Led into Science......Page 72 Popularization or Production: On Being Led Out of Science......Page 74 3. Language......Page 78 Bacon’s Organum......Page 79 The Encyclopedists as Midwives......Page 80 The Aristotelian Barrier......Page 81 Dramatis Personae......Page 83 Homo faber and Work versus Homo laborans and Labor......Page 84 Work Languages and Machine Languages......Page 85 A Work Language of Construction, Physics, and Information......Page 86 Work Languages Have Limits......Page 87 A Work Language of the Arts......Page 88 Babbage and the Translation from Manual to Machine Operations......Page 93 Functions versus Operations......Page 94 The Work Language of the Encyclopédie Anticipates Computer Programming Languages......Page 95 4. Algorithm......Page 100 Knuth’s Analysis of Algorithms......Page 101 Algorithms as Recipes......Page 105 Histories of Arithmetics......Page 107 Arithmetization......Page 111 Wittgenstein on the Foundations of Mathematics......Page 113 When Computers Were Human......Page 114 When Computers Became Machines......Page 116 Error versus Instrumentality......Page 117 Errors as Movements in a Space of Algorithms......Page 119 Machine Learning......Page 124 Algorithms as Imperfect Imitations......Page 125 5. Logic......Page 128 The Beginnings of Dialectic......Page 129 Distinguishing Dialectic from Logic......Page 131 Zeno’s Dialectic......Page 132 Descartes’s Method and the Cartesian Moment......Page 134 Logic in the Encyclopédie: Art or Science?......Page 135 Logic, Dialectic, and the Trivium as Schools of Thought......Page 136 Artificial and Natural Languages......Page 138 Logic Collapses to Calculation......Page 139 Leibniz as Rhetorician......Page 141 Logic Circuits......Page 142 Truth Tables......Page 145 Tables and Circuits of Arithmetic......Page 147 Oscillators and Flip-Flops: Circuits and Tables with Feedback......Page 148 Differences and Gaps......Page 151 Filling the Gap......Page 153 A Logic Circuit Simulator......Page 154 Logic Programming......Page 157 First-Order Predicate Logic......Page 158 Programming in Prolog......Page 159 Bringing Logic and Dialectic Back Together Again?......Page 163 From Logical Calculation to Rhetorical Demonstration......Page 164 6. Rhetoric......Page 166 The Mother of All Demos......Page 167 Demos at MIT......Page 168 The Imitation Game......Page 170 Plato’s Demonstrations......Page 171 Simulation and the Art of the Sophists......Page 172 Aristotle’s Demonstrations......Page 173 Shakespearean Demonstration......Page 175 Demonstrations of Geometry as Models for Plato and Aristotle......Page 176 Athenian Agonistics......Page 179 Plato and the Simulacrum......Page 182 Deduction, to Induction, to Abduction......Page 184 The Shaping of Induction......Page 185 Boyle’s Demonstrations......Page 187 Induction Today......Page 192 Inductive Inference Becomes Abductive Demonstration......Page 195 Technical Images......Page 197 A New Kind of Science......Page 199 Wolfram Beyond the Pale......Page 201 Statements and Rules as Images......Page 203 Ordering the Images......Page 207 Rule Set 110......Page 212 Claims of Computational Equivalence......Page 221 A New Kind of Rhetoric......Page 222 7. Grammar......Page 224 The Order of Things and the Computational Episteme......Page 225 Chomsky’s Crucible......Page 226 A History of Grammar......Page 228 The Port-Royal Grammar......Page 230 The Port-Royal Logic......Page 231 Chomsky versus Foucault......Page 232 Chomsky as Historian......Page 233 From Nineteenth-Century Brain Studies to Chomsky’s Devices......Page 235 The Contradiction of Descriptive Grammar......Page 237 Chomsky’s Grammars......Page 238 Simplicity, Complexity, and the Evaluation of Grammars......Page 241 Arithmetization and Chomsky’s Grammars......Page 243 Chomsky and the Computational Episteme......Page 244 Meaning and Chomskyan Linguistics......Page 246 Chomskyan Linguistics and Nondemonstrative Rhetoric......Page 248 Chomsky, Formalism, and Recursive Devices......Page 249 The Chomsky Hierarchy......Page 252 Definite Clause Grammars......Page 255 Translation Today......Page 258 Deduction, Induction, Abduction......Page 260 Theories of Arithmetic......Page 261 8. Conclusion......Page 264 Inside the Algorithm......Page 266 Outside the Algorithm......Page 270 Interaction, Identity, and Software Studies......Page 276 Chapter 1......Page 282 Chapter 2......Page 289 Chapter 3......Page 297 Chapter 4......Page 303 Chapter 5......Page 310 Chapter 6......Page 319 Chapter 7......Page 331 Chapter 8......Page 342 Bibliography......Page 348 Index......Page 378 "Software now constitutes a new form of logic, rhetoric, and grammar, a new means of thinking, arguing, and interpreting. The Software Arts argues that the foundational ideas and practices of computing come from the arts -- specifically, from a coupling of the liberal and the mechanical arts. The claim is that the software arts is a new name for something that has been ongoing for centuries: the pursuit of methods that provide us the means to invent and interrogate statements that can be or already are widely accepted as statements of connection, equivalence, or identity. The book accomplishes this by analyzing how a certain number of disciplines that were supposed to be at the heart of literacy or education in general (the famous liberal arts) are altered by their digitalization"-- Provided by publisher