Core Post #2 (Code/Software/OS)

In Alexander R. Galloway’s article “Language Wants To Be Overlooked: On Software and Ideology”, Galloway discusses the dichotomy of defining software as computer language and as machine. Although he presents an account for both strands, there seems to be more weight in defining or understanding software as computer language.

Galloway brings up a fundamental contradiction of software: “what you see is not what you get” (325). He talks about how code is a medium that isn’t a medium because it is never viewed as it is, in its original form, but that it is “compiled, interpreted, parsed,” translated and that it hides behind even larger groups of codes. To add to the point of software being what we don’t necessarily see; that the basic code structure is the backbone and definition of software, Galloway also brings up how Hui Kyong Chun points out that programming was originally “patching circuits together using cables or connectors and thus ‘software’ began historically not as executable software applications as we know them today but as any sort of service labor performed in or on informatic machines” (318).

 I found this very compelling in trying to understand code’s invisibility, but it also made me question if it reduces the definition of software to a limiting one. In defining software mostly by the codes that aren’t visible, to what degree is that ignoring or reducing the important of what is visible, readable, usable and/or navigable? Galloway continues by writing that “it is the exceedingly high degree of declarative reflexivity in software that allows it to operate so effectively as source or algorithmic essence” (320). If the visual and actual interactive more “human” part of software is such an important part of it, can we prioritize one or the other or are they on the same level? Galloway even mentions the paradox of technology proving its presence in the attempt of erasing itself to the highest degree possible. As much as it is compelling to define software by its roots, it is also important to define it by the result of that programming, which is what will ultimately become the version of the software that is the most usable for most people.