BECOMING SOFTWARE

Some boundaries that appear to be fuzzy when we try to define them (appeared wed. // thurs.):
- fuzzy line between data and software
- fuzzy line between software and hardware
- tollerance to noise, software being less tollerant to changes. That was something that could define software from data.
- fuzzy line between software and signal (signal vs. noise)
- machine learning algorithm and the training data, adaptibility
- developer/
- forking (when does one software becomes another software?)
- Is a social network a piece of software?
- FPGAs and Hardware Definition Languages

(FRIDAY)
- labor (is trainining an ML machine labor? "the reCATCHPA insight")
- process (Agile practices) "using" your users to define the requirements of the product (features in the product become defined by the feedback of the release cycle)
- services and agile processes collapsing the divide between production and  use
- Agile methodologies collapse product, labor and process.
- there is also the pain and labor that users bring to software that is rarely documented (e.g., activists using Signal) 

• - comment based on a study of floss chat tools (secure messaging?)

- thin / fat client software, where does it live?
- pocorgtfo   pdf is an executable is an image / http://alchemistowl.org/pocorgtfo

Appying agile: agile refers to a set of practices, a number of which needs to be adopted to qualify as an agile process.

Political Economy of Software Engineering 

• - software engineering is an expensive process
• - Tom DeMarco: why does software cost so much? It mostly has to do with process.
• - study of linux kernel: how much did it cost? 
• compensated through economies of scale
• - web development changed the landscape
• - more people joined the bandwagon: ex-yugoslavia a place where development gets outsourced to, also Russia and India (all hackers are Russian now, too)
• - when you establish a relationship of outsourcing
• 
  

- objective is not to define what is software, 

• - describe the how of software becoming
• - discussing "what is software" is productive, worth elaborating
• writing software does not come with the kind of reflection that this discussion provides

- it seemed obvious what is software, but it became more difficult

• - interest in corner cases: popular encryption algorithms, AES: you can write a program implementing it: software. but now it is embeddded in the chip, hardware.
• - code sequences in pdf: nobody would consider pdf to be software
• - postscript can also do this
• - proof of concept (gtfo) you can read it and execute it (peter will add a link)
• - burnt out ruby developer: he retired all the software and manuals. he published a file with a printing queue,
• - corner cases: narrow down the whole thing, we cannot come up with a definition of software, we can think about to come up with a feature set
• -if these features are fulfilled it can be considered software
• - yesterday: fpga: reconfigulrable hardware 
• Jean: what is software? he said, i can only tell you what is good software. qualifiers that can help narrow down the path: queer software  

- methodology: we can apply extreme programming as a way to write together (XP ==> programming in pairs or doing extensive code review, unit testing of all code)

• take a topic, ask people and document in twos
• 
  

- yesterday we had these machines with different use, with the punch cards

• looking at how the were used in business use
• mixed with what martino and anita showed: binaries as sets of instructions
• could we develop other algorithms with these machines
• do an addition or hangman on the tabulation machine
• what could be this sequence with the operator that handles the cards
• user, developer, operator, tester, sufferer, translator, technical writer, marketer, manager, product owner, devops etc.
• 
  

- software engineering practices are spreading -> a managerial culture that is poisoning other practices...

• it has effected start-up culture and how capital gets invested
• the individual genuis: the falsehood around the garage kids
• the idea with rushing to the market: minimum viable product. pervasive today
• grasshoper: data flow design tool
• architects are using it and are actually building software
• urban systems: generative system, they work mostly in china
• software with  sliders, their entire design process is building sotware so that you can design cities but moving the sliders
• the idea of a star architect, discussed in media, there is a much less glamorous process of building hopsitals, staidums
• configurable and modular cities
• 
  
• - architects see themselves as the original system architects and design
• BIM: every toilette is set up, the idea that you can have a process of when the toilette was built and fixed and replaced. the small guys are doing this 
• 
  

- roles and labor relations very interesting

• - a joke: bastardization of the agile method as a self-help method
• - i want to understand how software is made and services etc.
• - seeing it also as a vessel for having fun
• it is expensive, industry, investment
• maybe there is a way to misuse it
• make little steps that makes it funny, stupid or real
• relating also to what silvio was presenting 
• there is a link between the method and the output that we see as software
• in which way? i want to figure it out more...
• everybody is a start-up: bad metaphors

• 
  

cargocult: by richard feynman         

• rituals that people look at        
• colonialist practice?          
• in polynesia: pacific islands that were occupied by americans         
• the planes used to bring cargo, wealth         
• so they built an airport out of wood and stuff that was laying around hoping that the planes would come back
• by replicating the form hoping that things will materialize
• peolpe being occupied, with no relationship with them
• that's maybe what you are referring to
• a metaphor in coputing: cargocult
• i don't know if this actually happened
• this came after feynman published an article that was called cargocult science
• just by following the formal aspects of scientific method, people expect their results to be scientific
• i am not sure if it happened due to something that happened in polynesia
• or because of feynman's storytelling
• burning man: cargocult
• 
  

- why did you think about cargo cult?

• somehow as an image: interpreting agile practices as something different
• misusing of it
• taking at face value
• getting blind to some of the metaphors
• 
  
• doing it a bit more fun and playful
• this could be misused as a methodology to understand agile processes
• stripping the agile methodology some of its aspects and putting some of it back
• some of those words: if you look at them
• scrum i don't know well but it refers to rugby
• 
  
• idea: to look at the origins of terms in agile methods, like scrum
• take a scrum metaphor and insert yoga into it what happens?
• agile scrum yoga
• agile yoga is a thing
• 
  

- what this guide would be

• if it is about providing people with guidance on how to observer
•         data vs. software
•         software vs. hardware
•         to be interesting guidance
•         expand upon making these distinctions
•         
•         some of the programs we are having in making a distinction between software and everything else is
•         using information system
•         if you are using several pieces of software
•         then the things they do between using different software becomes the most important glue that makes sense of the software
•         one way you can understand this is seeing software as automating practice
•         and look at some workflows of people using software
•         if data and software is a thing, isn't it reasonable to map this out as an information system
•         data coming, breaking down the function
• 
  

- cargocult: mistakes, can you see something where you don't see the infrastructure but just the gesture, people on the radio are talking with someone else

• saying we don't have any more milk, drop us some
• i am unhappy about the term: the balance of power the occupied and the occupier
• the occupier made a mistake
• cargocult you don;t understand the infrastructre and try to make sense
• it is great mistakes
• 
  

- unrelated

• relationship between observation and evaluation
• from what i gather: evaluation is a core element of the agile method
• in order to be able to review and adapt to the moving target
• this observation and evaluation: evaluation is not only observation, it is something plus some criteria
• to have some criteria: in the sense of the cargocult, what they replicate is what they see, an image
•         

what are these things:

framing device: data vs. software, the roles (a taxonomy device) -- relates to identfifying obvious and less obvious forms of labor
cargocult: method of observation


META THINKING:

asking what is software as a method?

terms relevant to describing software:

•     computing
• programming
• developing
• programming languages
• algorithms
• data...
• development processes
• roles
• architecture
• protocols
• 
  

what are the economic forces acting upon software?

• how do you find out?
• 
  

CARGOCULT PROPS:

•     - coconut shells
• - cardboard laptops
• - candy wrappers
• - chewin gum as stickies
• - code reviews

A qualifier like "good", "bad", "spy", "queer", "proletarian", "bourgeisoie" can help narrow down definitions.

What is not software?