The Rhetoric of Programming

Ok, so this video here is full of programming jokes so I know not everyone in our small class will understand it (though the sarcasm and laughing will clearly show they're mocking stuff). The main point of this video is to mock some of the incredibly weird things that some of the more popular programming languages do. All the examples he (the man talking in the video) is giving in this video are showing fallacy's of some programming logic. Most of these examples are basically 1+1= fish of programming situations.

I wanted to share this video and get a second to talk about something that most people who don't program realize. The world of programming is an ever changing, highly opinionated world filled with people trying to persuade their peers that any program is either better/worse/wrong/right/pointless/revolutionary/dated/etc. I've sat with my friends -many of whom are brilliant programmers who already have years of experience programming - and listened to them debate code for hours. What code to use, what code not to use. The logical falicies they have seen in other people's coding. Why they code a certain way that they do. I have sat and watched them look over long lines of code, debating why they have the code work the way it does. This is because when you reach a certain advance level of programming it becomes as personal and even rhetorical as writing in English. A programmer can come to believe that code should work a certain way or a program should run a certain way.

I find this interesting - even when I don't understand everything they're saying - because it proves that digital rhetoric exists all the way down to the nuts and bolts of running the technology.