I thought the readings were very helpful, and were able to teach both beginners and those who have more experience. The video of how the internet works was entertaining and it made me think about how the vast majority of people view it as an “omni-present cloud” that simply exists outside of normal laws of physics. It reminded me of how many people view the media as some intractable machine bent upon feeding itself, rather than the public service many journalists are trying to provide.

Having some experience with programming, I had seen many of the “laws” given about programming in the workplace. I thought they were funny at many times, and unfortunately violated quite often in the corporate workplace (which is another viewpoint of people seeing something as a machine rather than a helpful tool). I had never thought to compare those rules to my writing as a journalist, but unconsciously I think that I did regardless. One of the hardest to follow for me is: simple is better than complex.

I like the idea of thinking like a programmer in our journalistic writing, as that is the background for much of my thinking. I am the son of two programmers, and therefore I find programming logic to be, well, logical. I want to delve into the guts of some programming languages, because I am always interested in learning something new about computers. I think that we can always make the languages more efficient and more dynamic, and that means that we should always be learning and adapting to new advances. It is also imperative, to me at least, to know where the origin of these languages and computers came from. The history of it is the basis for how we learn what mistakes we made and what to avoid in the future. I think this also applies to journalism, and writing in general. We should always be striving to write better; to report better; to investigate better. If we don’t learn as we go, we will get left behind.

The pre-class readings and videos made me realize that this class could provide me with a lot of new abilities and ways to expand my reach and amplify my voice. While I feel like I had a pretty good idea of how the internet works, I realized that I’m going to have to keep up with new developments, and that computing is always evolving after seeing the timeline of computation. I realized that more and more journalists are going to have to rely on programming and learn to do more on their own in order to be a successful part of their office, and they will definitely need these skills if they wish to strike out on their own.

Although WordPress is something I have used in other classes and experimented with in the past, and it can be used for the masses, I can have much more freedom if I learn how to used coding and programming to make my blog more dynamic and useful for my content. This can be done more cheaply if I am using the free, dot org version of WordPress and work without the constraints of paid templates. I am also realizing that putting in the legwork in early is going to pay large dividends in the end.

If I can make code as simple as I can early on, my building blocks will be stronger and more secure, and I will save myself a lot of time in the end. If I make sure I understand the concepts completely, in their simplest form, they will be much easier to use. The zen philosophy is simple, and encourages simplicity and tackling problems head on, early on, as “sparse is better than dense,” and “simple is better than complex.” Not letting things go until the last minute will be very helpful, as “now is better than never.”

The readings provided a great background that will be helpful moving forward in the semester. The Pragmatic Programmer Quick Reference Guide in particular will prove to be an extremely useful guide, and I imagine it will last as a permanent reference for me in general. The video explaining how the Internet works is also helpful because I believe it is important to understand how something actually works when you’re using it. Using the same logic, the computing timeline helps explain how we’ve gotten to the current state of computing and where it has the potential to head. It’s fascinating to see how long ago its roots can be mapped out to, and even more interesting to try and predict what could happen in 10, 20, 50 or 100 years.

What I took away the most from the reading was learning how to think like a programmer. Computational thinking being transferred into a different realm has the ability to help in a career that is not primarily programming. It would not be easy to simply redesign the way that we think in a snap of time, but it’s something I want to keep in mind moving forward and work towards being able to do. While I don’t work in journalism — I work in public relations — the same theory that programming and journalism can be partners can also be applied to my field as well. Public Relations has become married to the digital world just in the same way that journalism has. It’s not as simple as performing a traditional campaign with press releases or a written speech. You need a digital campaign as well. Conversations happen about an organization online, and it’s important to be able to not only participate in these conversations about a client, but to understand the back-end of these forums, as well as to also be able to think in a different mindset. Learning how to think in a computing mindset will help me in my daily work.

How can one manipulate the Internet without understanding the technology and other forces that drive it? Thinking of it as merely a “cloud” limits one’s potential to use the Internet to make money, promote a cause, or motivate the masses. Furthermore, failing to understand the Internet leaves one far behind the many who currently do.

I am not a journalist by trade, but the lessons learned in this week’s reading are, however, important in my line of work. For example, if I don’t understand how my Internet “presence” is perceived, I could alienate co-workers or customers who find me there.

One very interesting and applicable point I thought most of this week’s authors made was the idea of not getting stuck trying to define the Internet. As many of the authors inferred in their articles, the Internet is a living expression of us and our culture. There is no good reason to “figure out” the Internet. What’s more important, and definitely more profitable (in all forms of profit), is to learn how you and others are using it — or how it can be used — and then start from there.

I think everything I mentioned above also ties in well to the question of how it can be used in web development. One could learn to, let’s say, paint. He could learn the brushes to buy, the paper to use, and the techniques that make an attractive painting. He could get lost in it, actually. But if he can’t learn how painting is used to express an idea or feeling, or how people are moved by paintings, then he will never create a true work of art. In that same way, one could learn to be a web developer and never create a successful web page. Or one could learn to craft a web experience that moves people.

To say half of the articles went over my head is an understatement. I did however enjoy the common themes among the majority of the articles. The ‘How The Internet Works’ video was really informative and I never thought there were that many pieces in play. I was already familiar with the concept that websites are on servers and that’s the very reason Bluehost charges me as much as they do.

The technological timeline of the Internet and other things is really inspiring and it really makes you think how much things will advance in the next 30 years. Perhaps we’ll never have to deal with slow 3G internet on phones again (one can only hope).

The ‘Rethinking Our Thinking’ article on The Linchpen was informative, yet made you think about the parallels between programming and journalism. I respect the journalism profession and I’m even more intrigued after seeing shows like the House of Cards.

The article on computational thinking advanced the notion of programmers and journalists seeking the same goals just in different languages. It made the case for journalists to learn about programming because its another way of delivering a story instead of the declining traditional print method. A few of the parallels were reaching, but I could appreciate the insight.

The ‘Pragmatic Programmer Quick Reference Guide’ was anything but quick, but it was well-written. The Unix Philosophy was also well-written, it just happened to go over my head. The overarching themes I got out of both articles was the need to write clean code, to always keep the end user in mind and to limit bugs by building in a way that helps you test. A few of the rules were filled with jargon, I imagine I will understand as I learn more.

My favorite articles were the WordPress and GNU philosophies. They described a community of do-gooders that are writing and creating great software to help the end users. The GNU philosophy focused more on the concept of freedom of speech and urged the need to make your code easily accessible to others so they can use it for their own projects or to improve upon your work. It made me think of scientists who write about their experiments and advances so that one day people can read their journals and replicate their results and build upon them. It’s a way to continue your legacy and make an impact on technology as a whole. I am familiar with WordPress and I believe that they truly operate behind that philosophy. It’s a great CMS platform that is versatile among many industry verticals.

The Zen of Python is eloquently written and also focuses on the need to write clean code and simplify everything if it could be made simpler. I imagine that Python users keep those words in mind when writing code. The words seem to be engrained deep into the programming culture (if there is such a thing). All of the articles gave me great insight into what programmers attempt to achieve with every line of code.