OK: This is my first comment. (I'm sorry it's taken so long.)
At this stage, I've read your original proposal for the independent
concentration and I know your work from classes you've taken with me
and talks that we have had. I don't yet know what is written and noted
here. So what I write now - and for the next little while (unless I
read 'ahead' a good deal and then return to commentary - will be more
in the way of exposing some of the prejudices that I will be bringing
to my reading (a cast over the reading) and also (in the case of my
very first remark - very soon) general points.
This begs many questions and - if there is a beginning/end of this
text=your thesis - questions should perhaps be framed as such. You are
working to show *whether* or not two types of practice (that may be
embodied in a single entity/agency) are working in concert. Then you
might say 'how.' You might find that they are not doing the same things
but still working together (and in fact that is my own current
prejudice: writing practice and programming practice are distinct but
are intimately related both theoretically and historico-pragmatically).
The use of the words 'great' and 'high' also beg their own questions. I
find it very difficult to use such words. I believe that you can leave
these implicit attributions of value in suspension and still have great
(have you caught me out here or not?) expository force in your writing
and its arguments.
Response:
I do need to frame my questions
better. I don't think that it's as simple as trying to show that the
two practices of programming and literature are trying to "do the same
thing", but rather showing that human attempts to make (logical,
rational) meaning (in general) follow many of the same paths, in their
attempt to condense a large meaning into a small space of symbols.
And I'll try to be more careful with
my value-implying adjectives. I agree that they are dangerous to use in
writing — although, so far, these are just notes. I didn't mean "high"
to imply greatness, I'm just using it in the programming convention of
speaking about "high-level" languages, and "low-level" languages. It's
use shouldn't spread beyond that distinction.
