Instructions
Instructions
This chapter discusses programming as a new way of writing directed toward apparatuses instead of human beings and one that is meant to issue instructions. Children all learn the alphabet, and print has resulted in a comprehensive, democratizing literacy. However, new computer codes makes everybody illiterate again. For most of us, computer programs are suffused with the kind of mystery that surrounded alphabetic writing prior to the invention of print. If a program is to be understood as writing directed not toward human beings but toward apparatuses, then people have been programming since writing was invented—before there were any apparatuses. Because programs instruct apparatuses, the burden of instruction shifts from human beings to inanimate objects, and human beings become free to behave as they like. From this standpoint, the tendency inherent in instructions and culminating in programs is aimed at freedom. Whether programming will render all writing obsolete remains an open question.
Keywords: programming, writing, instruction, computer codes, computer programs, apparatuses, freedom
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