So, I haven’t done a whole lot of programming. I took one class back in high school that used Scratch, and maybe some HTML. Grade 11 feels forever ago. Still, the process of learning some basic python was kind of fun. We use computers and other forms of technology on a regular basis, learning the basics of programming just shows how complicated it really is. Even typing this out, I have no idea how it’s working. The interface is easy but I’m sure the programming behind it is more complicated than I can handle. The instructions we were given were fairly easy to follow and gave me a very basic idea of how it works.

How useful is this for historians? I’m a firm believer in historians branching out into other fields. Other disciplines provide useful insights and tools that can be utilized for historical work. As we’ve seen in class, historians are already using programming to create databases, ways of displaying historical data, and interactive exhibits. I think historians should be involving themselves further in learning how technology works. As a student of ancient and medieval history, I think this could even be utilized in my areas of expertise. I know of software being used to catalog manuscripts, but how recent are they? What resources are there for digital analysis of different types of handwriting? How do we even accomplish something of that scale? I’ve read some manuscripts that use 16th-century secretary hand and let me tell you, it isn’t easy to read. I would imagine the software would need to come up with suggestions for what each word could be, and then be interpreted by a scholar. How one would go about programming it, I have no clue. Maybe that’s where historians and computer scientists collaborate or historians capable of doing so can make that happen.

My point is, that I believe that even historians of ancient and medieval history could benefit from understanding some basic programming. It not only gives an appreciation for how computers understand and process information but it can also allow us to understand how we process information. Ancient historians, especially myself, are glued to books and texts. PDFs are about as technologically advanced as I get in my historical work. Maybe that should change. The process of programming and working on my digital history project might have shown me a new way of doing history. A way that involves a deeper understanding and utilization of computers.