Comments for Critical Code Studies http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress a resource for reading code Tue, 01 May 2012 12:58:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 Comment on On Efficiency by Ben Brumfield http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/2009/09/18/on-efficiency/#comment-89422 Ben Brumfield Tue, 01 May 2012 12:58:21 +0000 http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/2009/09/18/on-efficiency/#comment-89422 I think that much of the move towards high level languages and development frameworks over the last few decades has been precisely about trading slower program runtimes for greater programmer efficiency and expressiveness. In some cases the trade-off isn't even inevitable. I'm reminded of an anecdote from Steve Yegge's 2008 Google Talk <a href="http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/05/dynamic-languages-strike-back.html">"Dynamic Programming Languages Strike Back"</a>, in which he's explaining why he thinks his first employer went out of business after Microsoft's "slow", high-level framework out-performed their hand-tuned low-level assembly: <blockquote>[I]t's because we wrote fifteen million lines of 8086 assembly language. We had really good tools, world class tools: trust me, you need 'em. But at some point, man... The problem is, picture an ant walking across your garage floor, trying to make a straight line of it. It ain't gonna make a straight line. And you know this because you have perspective. You can see the ant walking around, going hee hee hee, look at him locally optimize for that rock, and now he's going off this way, right? This is what we were, when we were writing this giant assembly-language system. Because what happened was, Microsoft eventually released a platform for mobile devices that was much faster than ours. OK? And I started going in with my debugger, going, what? What is up with this? This rendering is just really slow, it's like sluggish, you know. And I went in and found out that some title bar was getting rendered 140 times every time you refreshed the screen. It wasn't just the title bar. Everything was getting called multiple times. Because we couldn't see how the system worked anymore! Small systems are not only easier to optimize, they're possible to optimize. And I mean globally optimize. So when we talk about performance, it's all crap. The most important thing is that you have a small system. And then the performance will just fall out of it naturally</blockquote> I think that much of the move towards high level languages and development frameworks over the last few decades has been precisely about trading slower program runtimes for greater programmer efficiency and expressiveness.

In some cases the trade-off isn’t even inevitable. I’m reminded of an anecdote from Steve Yegge’s 2008 Google Talk “Dynamic Programming Languages Strike Back”, in which he’s explaining why he thinks his first employer went out of business after Microsoft’s “slow”, high-level framework out-performed their hand-tuned low-level assembly:

[I]t’s because we wrote fifteen million lines of 8086 assembly language. We had really good tools, world class tools: trust me, you need ‘em. But at some point, man…

The problem is, picture an ant walking across your garage floor, trying to make a straight line of it. It ain’t gonna make a straight line. And you know this because you have perspective. You can see the ant walking around, going hee hee hee, look at him locally optimize for that rock, and now he’s going off this way, right?

This is what we were, when we were writing this giant assembly-language system. Because what happened was, Microsoft eventually released a platform for mobile devices that was much faster than ours. OK? And I started going in with my debugger, going, what? What is up with this? This rendering is just really slow, it’s like sluggish, you know. And I went in and found out that some title bar was getting rendered 140 times every time you refreshed the screen. It wasn’t just the title bar. Everything was getting called multiple times.

Because we couldn’t see how the system worked anymore!

Small systems are not only easier to optimize, they’re possible to optimize. And I mean globally optimize.

So when we talk about performance, it’s all crap. The most important thing is that you have a small system. And then the performance will just fall out of it naturally

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]]> Comment on On Efficiency by Michael http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/2009/09/18/on-efficiency/#comment-84130 Michael Thu, 30 Jun 2011 04:38:46 +0000 http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/2009/09/18/on-efficiency/#comment-84130 In the UK at least, humanities folk can no longer afford to ask such questions - the logic of efficiency has found the humanities wanting. Will there be anyone left to ask which came first, the dogma of economic efficiency or the dogma of computational efficiency? In the UK at least, humanities folk can no longer afford to ask such questions – the logic of efficiency has found the humanities wanting. Will there be anyone left to ask which came first, the dogma of economic efficiency or the dogma of computational efficiency?

]]> Comment on What does it mean to “interpret” code? by Kevin Gotkin http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/2011/06/19/what-does-it-mean-to-interpret-code/#comment-84072 Kevin Gotkin Tue, 28 Jun 2011 10:50:38 +0000 http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/?p=105#comment-84072 I think this is a great, expansive way to describe the interpretive gesturing that CCS is after. Of course, what makes it so capacious is also what can make it problematic (problem, here, I see as a positive term). I'm thinking of the problem of scale. It seems that CS people are able to get very small with their interpretation; they can talk about a specific line of code and locate it within a larger function of the software. On the other hand, there are the anthropologists, sociologists, humanists, and non-coders in general who, by dint of their lack of CS training, tend toward the larger, cultural studies concerns; they talk about the role of the software in an even larger function of code in sociological/historical/technological moment. As one of humanists, I can say I'm often quite nervous about not being able to talk deftly about the nuts and bolts of code. I can't read code like one reads a paragraph from a novel. And I suspect it works the other way, too: CS scholars might be worried that they don't have enough grounding in cultural studies methods to be able to make larger claims about software. This tension, this problem of scale, is what I see as the central and essential bedrock of CCS. The challenge in interpreting code will always be to bridge the small and the large, which in the end probably requires a well-connected, diverse, and chatty group of people. To respond, then, to the problem that I think this post is trying to tackle: I think CCS sets itself apart as a nascent subfield because of its interdisciplinarity, which demands not only a group of border-crossing scholars, but also a unique way of talking to each other about their objects and subjects of scholarship. I think this is a great, expansive way to describe the interpretive gesturing that CCS is after. Of course, what makes it so capacious is also what can make it problematic (problem, here, I see as a positive term). I’m thinking of the problem of scale. It seems that CS people are able to get very small with their interpretation; they can talk about a specific line of code and locate it within a larger function of the software. On the other hand, there are the anthropologists, sociologists, humanists, and non-coders in general who, by dint of their lack of CS training, tend toward the larger, cultural studies concerns; they talk about the role of the software in an even larger function of code in sociological/historical/technological moment. As one of humanists, I can say I’m often quite nervous about not being able to talk deftly about the nuts and bolts of code. I can’t read code like one reads a paragraph from a novel. And I suspect it works the other way, too: CS scholars might be worried that they don’t have enough grounding in cultural studies methods to be able to make larger claims about software. This tension, this problem of scale, is what I see as the central and essential bedrock of CCS. The challenge in interpreting code will always be to bridge the small and the large, which in the end probably requires a well-connected, diverse, and chatty group of people. To respond, then, to the problem that I think this post is trying to tackle: I think CCS sets itself apart as a nascent subfield because of its interdisciplinarity, which demands not only a group of border-crossing scholars, but also a unique way of talking to each other about their objects and subjects of scholarship.

]]> Comment on What does it mean to “interpret” code? by Wedding Dress http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/2011/06/19/what-does-it-mean-to-interpret-code/#comment-83934 Wedding Dress Thu, 23 Jun 2011 22:15:38 +0000 http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/?p=105#comment-83934 Article is very interesting,thanks for your sharing. Article is very interesting,thanks for your sharing.

]]> Comment on Critical Code Studies vs. Software Studies by Patrick Burgaud http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/2007/12/07/critical-code-studies-vs-software-studies/#comment-7 Patrick Burgaud Sun, 09 Dec 2007 09:20:49 +0000 http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/2007/12/07/critical-code-studies-vs-software-studies/#comment-7 Emphasis is important indeed. I think that emphasizing code or computation is not only a question of limited time. Choosing for programable poetry was/is for me as a practitionner nothing more than going to a new kind of perception, if I may say "text free", going on with some main principles of visual, sound, action poetries,as poetical expressions AGAINST printed poetry. I would say, but I am not sure if I'm right, especially of the consequences of this idea, that epoetry focuses on computation despite the code. I think that executability is essential, as the basic condition of epoetry. Studying code leads to a better comprehension of what programable art deeply is, can be, and/or would be. One the critical studies (in general) functions is to make clearer to everybody, audience and pratictionners, what is essential in one case and what not. Reading the code can be important in both situations, but with other outcomes. Emphasis is important indeed. I think that emphasizing code or computation is not only a question of limited time. Choosing for programable poetry was/is for me as a practitionner nothing more than going to a new kind of perception, if I may say “text free”, going on with some main principles of visual, sound, action poetries,as poetical expressions AGAINST printed poetry. I would say, but I am not sure if I’m right, especially of the consequences of this idea, that epoetry focuses on computation despite the code. I think that executability is essential, as the basic condition of epoetry. Studying code leads to a better comprehension of what programable art deeply is, can be, and/or would be. One the critical studies (in general) functions is to make clearer to everybody, audience and pratictionners, what is essential in one case and what not. Reading the code can be important in both situations, but with other outcomes.

]]> Comment on Sel[f]e[le]ct>Proc.ess>[1st]S.kin by Critical Code Studies vs. Software Studies | Critical Code Studies http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/2007/11/30/selfelectprocess1stskin/#comment-4 Critical Code Studies vs. Software Studies | Critical Code Studies Fri, 07 Dec 2007 07:45:15 +0000 http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/2007/11/30/selfelectprocess1stskin/#comment-4 [...] Sel[f]e[le]ct>Proc.ess>[1st]S.kin [...] [...] Sel[f]e[le]ct>Proc.ess>[1st]S.kin [...]

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