THE CREATIVE CODING START

Algorithm in Software Studies by M Fuller (pp15-20)

ALGORITHM- a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer

Les Goldschlager and Andrew Lister say that algorithm “ is the unifying concept for all the activities which computer scientists engage in”

Algorithm is independent and autonomous (free to control itself)

Algorithms are used in many researches such as the one of artificial life. They are also used in the commercial industry such as shopping websites where the website suggests your preferences.

What is the role that algorithms play in society, culture and politics?

Software Engineering is one field which could be considered to look into culture through algorithms.Particularly “ a study of algorithm as such can tell us about the place of culture in software.

Alan Turing made a simple experiment in which he used the algorithm as a set of instructions to feed into a machine and solve a problem ( mechanical) . If there was no algorithm, there would be no computing

Algorithms and material reality have a close connection, which is the fact that without the machine in Turing’s experiment there would be nowhere to implement the algorithm. This relationship between the algorithm and the physics is what makes Stephen Wolfram believe that the universe is “itself a giant computer”.

In this article it is also talked about how as much as Turing’s experiment was very much theoretical, the algorithm is rather a “pragmatics dimension”. Without the actual existence of the machinery, algorithms would have stayed theories.

Language itself is a very complicated thing and this articles also tries to look at programming language as any other and what is found there is that in linguistics the formalization of the language comes first and in computing it comes second.

Michel Foucault looks at linguistics and computing too. He notes that when people speak they do much more than just playing around with the language and these actions are restricted to a human mind. In computing the system of language is much more complicated.
This complication can lead to thought of how algorithms work on themselves, machine and humans and this can be considered a cultural analysis of software engineering.

Formalism (a sort of ethics) looks at the close connection between computing science and historical context. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari look into a similar relationship which primarily proves that algorithms are not abstract enough and so algorithm as a machine can not understand the relationship between machine and human.

Data structures and algorithms are almost useless without one another, and it is hard to understand algorithms without applying them to data and its existence.A precondition of data exists so that algorithms are controllable within software.There is also and operation of translation involved and it can be achieved in many ways.

“What is an algorithm is not the conceptual embodiment of instrumental rationality within real machine?”

There is more to algorithm than logic. If code was law, then it is law as a “management of infractions (a violation of law)” The formal logics have
loopholes, they can be incomplete and impossible to clearly distinguish

Podcast: When Women Stopped Coding

Elsie Shutt started Comp Ink Company which was staffed entirely of women.

In the 80’s the percentage of women who studied in the field of computer science drastically went down. In 1984 so many women gave up on computer science.

Some women who were outstanding in mathematics did not seem to cope with the pressure of computer science, however males such as Lee Van Doren excelled in the field. The reason he specifically was so good at programming is because that he had been programming for years, in contrast with the females who had just had their first classes ever.

The main reason for women giving up/ being forced to choose another major can be considered that it was mostly men who had availability to computers at home. The computers were being advertised towards the male gender, they were made appealing by focusing on the game concept
( “Boys were better target market?”).Only with a home computer could one fully succeed in computer science.

Jane Margolis talks about how apart from the availability problem, women also tend to underestimate themselves more, whilst men exaggerate what they know. Men also have a more “obsessive behaviour” and so the tendency to stay up all night coding, whilst a woman would chose a normal time of the day.

Carnegie Mellon University - helped with the inspiration for women to get back on their feet and start coding.

P5 BASICS

THE GLITCH ONE

Here i have not set a stop point for the lines that are being drawn to terminate and so this creates an error in the visual of the sketch as the lines are going offscreen of the set size of the canvas.

CHARACTER

Here I have created a very simple character known as a smiley face. Only tho I decided that my character is not going to smile, but will have a resting face. As I said it is very simple and only created by ellipses and a line, but I believe it worked well for the exercise. I got a basic understanding of orientating shapes directions of lines around the canvas.