Ira Sigman

1/26/17
Literacy Narrative Draft 2
A formula is all it takes. Carl Jung figured it out for movies, Einstein figured it out for

time and space, Avogadro figured it out for atoms. Equations are the key for these creators in

their craft. Writing is no different than these other mediums of thought, it is cold and calculated

from the precision of practice and convention. While some may believe, it is more creative than

disciplined, I would argue that these traits are one in the same. This is the way I learned to read

and to write, through the study of computer code. While I did learn English before ever typing on

a keyboard, by learned to read and write I am referencing the ability to synthesize conclusion,

deduct meaning, and compose with purpose. The systematic use of conventions and syntax are

the similarities between these two disciplines that allowed me to draw on one for experience in

both.

In a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, twenty-one percent of the

adult population in the U.S. read below a fifth-grade level. This is considered illiterate by many,

because the ability to know a word, and to know a meaning of the very same word, is inherently

different. To climb over this gap to meaning, one must find another route of understanding

beyond simply defining words from a dictionary. To me, this path was through dozens of space

age processors in the form of complied computer code.

Contrary to popular belief there is more than one way to write any single program that

has ever existed. There is a myriad of solutions to every quandary in code. This same principle

holds true in so many disciplines, including writing. Considering writing as a form of problem-

solving was the spark for igniting a new wave of literacy so long ago. I began to wonder not only
about the definitions and facts of language, rather its tone, its deeper meaning, its genre, its

context, its bias, its emotion. These same nuances can be found in verbose computer code where

there exist authors who are masters of layering meaning with practicality, use with modulization,

context with efficiency. There is a descriptor common in composition known as pithiness, or the

ability to economically chose words and phrases that communicate the necessary arguments.

Pithiness or at least a form of it, is at the heart of computer code. Google did not become the

largest distributor of hyperlinks in the world because they were the first to think of it. They rose

to the top because they could perform more actions with less code out of a garage near Stanford

in California. A parallel to this idea in composition reminds me of Josef Conrads Heart of

Darkness. Captain Marlows adventure deep into the heart of Africa where he discovers the

animalistic nature of man, and the forces that fuel the enigma machine which dictates the

entire tone of mysticism and adventure throughout the novel. The density of language allows for

an immersive world to formulate around the tale of a sailor in search of a physical and

psychological goal. This is accomplished in far fewer words than a verbose fantasy tale such as

the Harry Potter series. It is this mastery of words and phrases that breed generational prophetic

writers of literature and code alike.

While writing perhaps an argumentative essay serves a task (to convince a target

audience), a program accomplishes a different goal in the same manor. Planning, fine tuning,

syntactical decisions, grammatical disputes, struggle with writers block, and all the other

hardships that exist within English composition hold true for coding. To illustrate my point on

breadth of solution base in programming I would like to offer the following scenario. A student

writes an English paper that is not concise, reuses many terms, does not accomplish the full task

at hand, and does in five pages what a master writer could have done in one. Now consider the
novice coder, who writes everything procedurally instead of extracting to classes, reuses syntax

instead of utilizing functions, does not compile, and does in five-hundred lines what a master

coder could have done in one-hundred lines. Just as writing is a life-long skill that is never truly

attained or lost, mastery of computer code is the same in principle. There is no such thing as

knowing how to code just as there is no such thing as knowing how to write. It is a spectrum

of literacy in both disciplines that define skill in communication.

Before I got in to grey-hat Linux command-line programs, I was a kid who enjoyed

taking apart computers. Hardware was seemingly unreal, bits of metal generating computing

power. It wasnt until I had broken down dozens of servers to their base components that I

realized that the parts could get smaller, the processing system in every computer is nothing

more than electricity used in a complicated way. I started to bust down the OS into its

components, then those components into their constituents, and then those constituents into their

base logic and materials. Years later I do the same thing because my love for seeing the inner

workings of software and hardware lives on. In my life, the defining time of literacy in computer

code was in my first job doing internal tech. I had read the scripts of my predecessor and he had

done everything in such a way that was illegible to outside readers. IT is like trying to write an

argument essay with fifteen authors of various backgrounds, understandings, and skill levels. In

many ways, it resembles a secret society. The team has clearance levels and works on a need to

know basis, there is an informal initiation, there are veiled language conventions, and enigmatic

processes which would be deemed puzzling by outsiders. Consider the notebooks of

Michelangelo, layered with secret messages and undefined language. These scripts which ran the

daily operations of the office were written to a similar cryptic end. It was at this moment I

realized I was illiterate in code, I could understand individual processes or phrases but the work
was a mystery to me. I couldnt make head or tails of the purpose. After a dozen cans of Monster

Energy drinks and 3 sleepless night I had converted all the files to usable formats and it dawned

on me what had just occurred. Someone else had written rough drafts of the programs and it was

up to me to edit them, and to raise the level of operation of those documents. Since that

experience I have always taken the opportunity to be the instigator of review. Any piece of

writing as small as a single word has room for improvement. This realization has forced

profound improvements to my skill as a writer and as a programmer.

There is no easy way to determine the outcome of something until you jot it down and

put it into action. Just as one could not sit down and recreate Dickens Tale of Two Cities, a

master of the pertinent craft may not simply synthesize the masterpiece commonly known as the

Facebook friend algorithm. But that doesnt mean one cant improve, or learn the basics. As I

write this, I remain constantly in review of my own work and my own thoughts, as I cannot

expect my current ones to be as concise and elegant as they will ever be, but they must do for

now. And as I become a more fluent reader and writer (as no one is ever done progressing in this

respect), I see the great connections in analytic thought as it pertains to the written word of any

language or discipline. They are connected in a way that I do not yet have the lingual skill to

define, but fully expect to garner in the future.

Citations:
1. Crum, Maddie. "The U.S. Illiteracy Rate Hasn't Changed In 10 Years." The Huffington
Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2017.