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console.log(Autoethnography)

After the first few years of high school, I tried to figure out what I wanted to do in the

near future. Some of my friends were taking a computer science and a game design class so I

decided to take it with them. Often, I was asked by my friends to help with the assignments

because I understood it. After I had completed this class I continued to learn some of the other

programming languages on my own. It was after this class that I transitioned into the computer

science major and a new Discourse, as described by Gee, doing-believing-valuing-believing

combinations (Gee, 278).

Community Discourse Description

The Discourse of computer science, which has many components and subfields is a very

popular and populated community. More specifically, programming is comprised of people who

are devoted to the field of computer science and work towards the development of the industry.

This is the specific part of the Discourse that I identify with, my identity kit (Gee, 278). These

people also usually share a lot of data, as most sciences will. For programming, specifically open

source code is often published for others to use in their work. This makes the entire community

extremely efficient because the most efficient and best version of something already exists,

there is no need to re-invent the wheel (I have been told this many times). This community is

very large and, because of this, there is copious amount of communication that happens within

the Discourse.
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Literacy Sponsors

Within this community there are many literacy sponsors (Brant, 72). Just about anyone

can be one if they affect your ability to program. The most common literacy sponsors though are

professors/ teachers. They are the ones laying down the ground work and helping you understand

the fundamentals of a language, or computer science in general. For me in particular, it was my

teachers and professors who gave me the most knowledge about what different languages there

are, what the differences in some of the syntaxes are, and the structure of the specific languages

we were covering. However, since there are many who publish content for others to learn and

study computer science, there are also some online resources such as GitHub, which is according

to them The worlds leading software development platform, can have a large effect on your

literacy. This site allows for users to create a repository to upload and edit their code either by

themselves or collaboratively. This work can be searched for, commented on, and have changes

suggested by any other user on the site, granted it is public. I do use this site; however, I

usually view other work that is higher level than mine to see what styles they are using in their

programs. As Brant states in her research article but also stand to gain benefits form their

success, referring to sponsors (Brant, 73). For professors and teachers, the primary

motivation of being a literacy sponsor is monetary; its just their job. Another motivation for

some may be the benefit of everyone else in the community and perhaps higher status. When

people work together in the community, everyone benefits. We can all use the code or theories

others have created for us to create more complex systems and further develop our own

knowledge.
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Discourse Elements

There are many programming languages to learn, hundreds of them in fact (Diana),

meaning there is a lot to learn and a lot of people to help teach them. Since these languages are a

large part of the community, naturally they are one of the ways language is used to get into this

Discourse. The understanding and thorough knowledge of even one or a few languages, enough

understanding to be able to effectively communicate with others, can help you to become part of

the community. There is also certain lingo essential for being considered a competent

programmer. Simple examples include: Boolean expressions, binary and ASCII characters, logic

operations, algorithms, arrays and many more (Computer Programming Terms). In some

languages, there a whole new set of ideas, or ideas presented in a different manner that

differentiate them. Learning one language to its fullest extent is a good way to help yourself

learn other languages though. Most of the basics are the same from one to another and it is only

small syntax adjustments that really set them apart.

Literate Activities

Because there is a lingo and language associated with this Discourse, almost all, if not all,

can be classified as literacy activities (Brant, 89). Some of them include writing code into

programs, problem solving and evaluating code, collaboration with other programmers, using

created work to communicate with the intended audience, especially in games, and mostly for

students, we also are being taught material and taking notes/ doing exercises on the content. All

of these activities, except for the last one perhaps, require a base knowledge of the task at hand

and the required language to complete the activity. Writing the code usually involves a plan of

action to be laid out before you begin, meaning a drafting session where the base of the program

is written in pseudocode, which is written in English but formatted like a program. Problem
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solving with a program can be done either as a team or as an individual. Having others read

through the code help to spot errors that may not have been found otherwise. The logs that an

IDE (integrated development environment) presents, where the code is written and compiled, can

be read through to give an understanding about where the error is to search and fix it. Since

segments of code are often shared, collaborating on a project is common and help bring ideas

and comments from all parties involved into the program making it better overall. These

programs are made to do something; sometimes they are intended for other people to use. This

means the programmers are effectively talking to the audience through the program and often

asking for input from them. Since I am a student, doing constant activities such as note taking are

important. Visuals are often displayed to show us parts of programs that are written out a specific

way. We are constantly sifting through lines of code to understand what make it work and how

we could implement all of this into our own work.

Personal Writing Process

My work specifically has a similar process to others in the community. While creating

larger projects, ones that have a couple hundred lines of code, I find myself writing out parts of

the program in pseudocode to help me understand exactly what is going on in a particular

segment. This is particularly effective in logical if, and, and or statements to break the

process down in to simple understandable components. I also try to structure the whole thing in a

particular way to make the program and individual procedures easier to read. There are a couple

of ways some like to have the placement of things like variables and curly braces. I like to have

all related content together will plenty of comments. It also helps me to have everything line up

properly including having the braces line up in a particular manner and indentations for each new

level of logic. Since there are many things that could go wrong in a program, I will constantly
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run it and look for errors. This is much more efficient than writing one thousand lines of code

and having errors everywhere because you never looked back. I usually do the same for writing

papers; maybe writing a paragraph then looking over it to revise the content that I just wrote.

This is a more efficient way of revising and editing content, but I know that there is still room for

some improvements in my work. If the procedures in the program are not too hard to code, then

my work gets sloppy sometimes and I usually dont add a lot of comments and put it in the right

order. Taking my time to process all of the different parts of the program would more than likely

lead to a more thorough and complete program as a whole, instead of only parts being properly

done.

Communitys Influence on Writing

All of these parts of my style and personal writing process have been influenced by the

communitys writing and language. Since there is specific language that is used for this

community, that is often the type of language I use when in the community setting and working

in and with the community. Due to the nature of the Discourse, being that there is a healthy

amount of open source material and many people with different styles easily accessible, being

influenced by someone elses process is relatively easy. I was and continue to be exposed to

styles that I like and incorporate into my own work and some I dislike and stray away from.

While there are many different elements that can influence an individual in this community,

ultimately it is up to that individual to decide what they like and what to use in their own work.

This is what I did with the programs I wrote; I took different parts of styles I had seen and put

them together to create something of my own and that suits me. The majority of which is based

on how the code is presented. I prefer a certain organization that I believe others would like but
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they could decide otherwise. This is why I appreciate this Discourse for its diversity of styles and

the encouragement to develop your own style.

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Works Cited

Brant, Deborah. Writing about writing: A College Reader - Sponsors of Literacy. Boston, MA,

Bedford Bks St MartinS, 2017. (70-99)

Computer Programming Terms. Computer Hope, 15 Sept. 2017.

Diana, Robert. The Big List of 256 Programming Languages - DZone Java. Dzone.com, 24

Aug. 2017.

Gee, James Paul. Writing about writing: A College Reader - Literacy, Discourse, and

Linguistics. Boston, MA, Bedford Bks St MartinS, 2017. (276-295)