Python: Both Scary and Wonderful
Within the weeks leading up to our labs on Python, I couldn’t help but sketch myself out – I was terrified of this program. All I had ever known about Python prior to this class was that it showed up on my screen anytime something went wrong. Talking about Python and coding with my friends who are in computer science consistently made my head explode and confirmed all of my worst fears. By the time our labs came around I was fully expecting to be lost and on the verge of tears the entire hour.
Immediate Crash and Burn?
To my immediate surprise, I did not in fact combust into a ball of flames! In actuality, I relatively enjoyed working with Python. At first, I found it difficult navigating the beginner tutorial on .html, but as I worked through the other tutorials I gained more and more confidence in the program. The more confident in my skills that I got, the faster I went through the tutorials, and I ended my exploration at about lesson 10 which was counting word frequencies with Python. What I liked best about working with Python was the little burst of excitement I experienced every time something worked the way it was supposed to. I kept on saying “this is so cool!” and “how does it do that?!”. Overall, I was (and still am) completely blown away by how Python works and how much fun I had exploring the uses and basics of programming.
Python for History
After experiencing the rollercoaster that is learning how to use Python, I truly believe that it could be a very useful tool for historians. Honestly, programming in general could be extremely useful for the majority of humanities research. Just by going through the first 10 tutorials on Python, it is clear that programming could have a definitive affect on the future of studies in the humanities. Within these beginner tutorials, I was able to work with .html files and text files to perform basic tasks like count word frequencies, download web pages, and normalize text data. All of these aspects have the ability to assist researchers in analyzing large amounts of data and information, which would in turn speed up a portion of the research process. Historians today use a form of this kind of programming when performing tasks like text mining which has shown to be incredibly useful. I truly believe that if historians and other humanities researchers alike decide to implement the use of computer science and programming into their individual fields, that the face of said research would be changed forever. Currently we stand at this weird and confusing crossroad between traditional historical research and digital historical research and it seems the majority of scholars have no idea what the future holds for us. I assume this is what people felt in the 80s and 90s when new technologies like computers and game consoles were being released! I, for one, have a vision of the future of the humanities that I would like to see unfold, but have no idea where to start or how to push this movement forward. Fooling around with Python is really what made me realize this dream. There are so many different technologies and so much untouched information just sitting and waiting for us to reach out and grasp it. I’m curious to see how we will approach such newfound concepts and innovations in the future.