essay on codework

[noemata]

i felt like commenting this, though i'm a fraud when it comes to 
codework, and much else for that matter, i don't even write under a 
legal name for fear of consequences being associated with the hack 
activity. i agree on your take on knots which reminds of old ch'an 
texts, like the lin chi lu, scorching the students for being tied up 
in knots, in a bashing, cynical style, which also has my full sympathy 
from diogenes on. and i have no other solution either, people should 
develop strong faith in themselves, the rest comes by. in a way that 
would be codework also, since the faith is not grounded in anything - 
no inside, no outside - the faith is really unsupported and absurd, 
which is not far from calling it a joke entirely. and that's what i'd 
like to emphasize some more - the unsupported, or self-contained, 
aspect of codework, the making of itself, which on the one extreme 
amounts to impenetrable cypher or gibberish, on the other mere 
tautological statements. there's much knotting going on, much notting, 
much nothing - but which all might be dialectical helping, or maybe 
not - regardless quackery. if there's some pleasure constructing or 
experiencing codework it will survive. by its nature it will have to 
do that by f*cking itself up, which maybe is the point of your essay 
in effect, to which i would agree. an idea of the codework to be 
transparent is crazy, i think, and would eventually kill it, as would 
an invasion of quacks and obfuscation. i'm on the quack side so these 
comments should not be taken too seriously, neither should codework.

02/02/2004 21:17:29, Alan Sondheim <sondheim at PANIX.COM> wrote:

>essay on codework
>
>like every other style, codework will disappear
>as soon as it's born, an uncomfortable
>miscarriage of the beginning and defensive
>tactics of the classic information age. codework
>attracts its share of quacks precisely because it
>_is_ quackery - and doesn't one ever get tired of
>monospacing? but there are more serious
>considerations here.:there's no demand for it, no
>pleasure in it, it's ult to construct. one would
>think that problematic linkages between
>programming and literatures would be fruitful,
>but the programming is facile, at best
>explanatory or obfuscating, and it's already
>dated as soon as it's written. you'd have to be
>the author to follow it. it's a style that ties
>itself into a knot.:there is no transformation,
>no knowledge. codework is a fraud. if i could
>code, i'd never use the literature fakebook. my
>programs are absurd, a few lines at the most. i
>can hardly configure a program, much less create
>one. codework is last vestige of tradition,
>conservative in its subversion of code. it
>manages to escape traditional aesthetic
>categories in favor of the mess, or knotted
>striations. it's dated as soon as it's
>written.:the problem with codework:tying oneself
>in knots
>
>write first the fake or fraud through my like
>every other style, codework will disappear as
>soon as it's born, an uncomfortable afterbirth of
>the beginning and defensive tactics of the
>classic information age. codework attracts its
>share of quacks precisely because it _is_
>quackery - and doesn't one ever get tired of
>monospacing? but there are more serious
>considerations here.
>
>monstrous repetition
>
>A sheep and
>   fury nightmare
>A sheep and
>   fury nightmare
>
>
>__
>