My dog Roxy wrote the code. Before I get into my story I do have one thing to say about the reading. Computer codes are more than just instructions for machines. According to the reading Toward the Rhetorical Study of Code, the author speaks about code as a form of cultural and rhetorical expression. Stay with me. Basically, trying to express code is sort of a type of writing. It has meaning, it’s not just a code, it expresses ideas while reflecting culture. Scholars in the reading were looking at the code for not what it does but for what it means. How a code influences people, how it’s written and its style.
They approach the field in three ways: one was literary orientation /analysis where they were looking at code like text to find out the author’s purpose etc. Second was software vs critical code studies, here they were examining how the code looks vs how it runs. Lastly was computer literacy, it was pushing more human skills and critical thinking skills into the program.
As I was reading this, it reminded me of this random memory I have with my dog, Roxy. During spring break 2024 my family went to Florida and I stayed home with her. I remember leaving my computer on the coffee table while I went to grab my Tostitos out of the oven. Roxy’s a curious and very noisy dog. She always feels the need to snoop through everyone’s stuff. When I came back, she was halfway on the table, her paws just resting on my keyboard. Somehow, Roxy opened my code editor and typed complete nonsense. Just random characters in all different colors.
It lowkey panicked me for a second because I had never seen that before. But looking back now, I can’t help but laugh. I think about how that moment connects to this reading. I was trying to make these code make sense, for them to have a meaning. They were just random characters in different colors.
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