Coding is a topic which I have mixed emotions about.  This set of articles explain the difficulty of coding as a historian and highlight the importance of embracing the “culture of coding” with a humanist stance in mind.  In terms of “learning code for the sake of coding, Cafferata suggests that “As decontextualized rote response mechanisms, they are retrograde pedagogical steps in an era when critical thinking ought to be a hallmark of educational effectiveness.”  This seems to be important not just to coding, but to understanding the role that we, as budding digital historians, should play in developing our profession.

I have been guilty of the attitude expressed by Widner; I have considered digital history, and coding in particular, a “necessary means to an end”, and this has left me feeling a dislike and even a philosophical push against the digital humanities.  We have been told we must code in order to save our profession.  What if we opened ourselves to using code to our own ends and not the pragmatic ends of the academy (that needs to increase their revenue and student body)?  What if we looked at it as fun and exploratory?