Software Studies series at The MIT Press which is co-edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin (Computer Science, UCSB) and myself (Computer Science, CUNY Graduate Center) just published a pretty pioneering book:
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 [yes, this is the actual title]
Like another just published MIT Press book Digital_Humanities, 10 PRINT is an example of a group collaboration strategy reaching yet another field - academic publishing. 10 PRINT was "coded" by 10 writers. However, rather than producing yet another academic anthology made up by independent parts, they made a coherent single "intellectual software" which executes beautifully.
The design of 10 PRINT was done Casey Reas, the co-creator of popular Processing language and a Professor in UCLA Design | Media arts department.
One of the book writers is our own Jeremy Douglass. Jeremy was a post-doctoral researcher at Software Studies Initiative from 2008 to 2012. This Fall he started his new job as Assistant Professor in English department at UCSB. Jeremy overseen all software development and its applications for big data analysis in our lab, and he now to works with the lab as its Technical Director.
The complete book PDF is freely available online for download:
http://trope-tank.mit.edu/10_PRINT_121114.pdf
If you download the PDF, I encourage to also buy the print edition, because its a very "print object" to have around.
Visit also:
MIT Press page for the book
Writers:
Nick Montfort, Patsy Baudoin, John Bell, Ian Bogost, Jeremy Douglass, Mark C. Marino, Michael Mateas, Casey Reas, Mark Sample, Noah Vawter.
Summary from Amazon:
This book takes a single line of code--the extremely concise BASIC program for the Commodore 64 inscribed in the title--and uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture. The authors of this collaboratively written book treat code not as merely functional but as a text--in the case of 10 PRINT, a text that appeared in many different printed sources--that yields a story about its making, its purpose, its assumptions, and more. They consider randomness and regularity in computing and art, the maze in culture, the popular BASIC programming language, and the highly influential Commodore 64 computer.
Sample page:
software studies initiative
