Our presentation on Metaphors of Code at ITK-Conference. See slides with comments here: http://www.thispagehassomeissues.com/blog/2015/4/16/metaphors-of-code-presentation-at-itk-conference-2015 Abstract Information and communication technology (ICT) has become embedded into our daily lives. Code is in the heart of this technology. The way code is perceived influences the way our everyday interaction with ICT is perceived: is it an objective exchange of ones and zeros, or a value-laden power struggle between white male programmers and those who think they are users, when they are, in fact, the product being sold. Understanding the nature of the code thus enables the imagination and exploration of the present state and alternative future developments of ICT. This better understanding is especially important for developing basic education so that it gives capabilities for coping with these developments. Currently, the discussion has been mainly on the technical details of the code. In this article, we study how to broaden this narrow view in order to support the design of more comprehensive and future-proof ICT education. We approach the concept of code through nine different metaphors from existing literature on systems thinking and organisational studies. The metaphors we use are machine, organism, brain, flux and transformation, culture, political system, psychic prison, instrument of domination and carnival. We describe their epistemological background and give examples of how code is perceived through each of them. We then use the metaphors to suggest different complementary ways ICT could be taught in schools. The metaphors illustrate different contexts and help to understand the discussions related to developments in ICT such as open source community, democratization of information and internet of things. They also help to identify the dominant view and the tensions between the views. We propose that the systematic use of metaphors described in this paper would be a useful tool for structuring the dialogue around code in designing ICT education.

1. Metaphors of code
exploring the future of code literacy from different
perspectives
Tomi Dufva
Aalto-University
School of Arts, Design & Architecture
tomi.dufva@aalto.fi
tomidufva
Mikko Dufva
VTT Technical Research Centre of
Finland
mikko.dufva@vtt.fi
mdufva

2. code

3. Is it an objective exchange
of ones and zeros,
or a value-laden
power struggle
between
white male programmers
and those who think they
are users, when they are,
in fact,
the product being sold.
?

4. metaphors

5. Metaphors
are a mechanism
for describing, understanding
and comparing
abstract concepts
and can be defined as mappings
across conceptual domains
(Lakoff, 1993)

6. machine
organism
brain
flux and transformation
culture
political system
instrument of domination
psychic prison
carnival

7. machine
organism
brain
flux and transformation
culture
political system
instrument of domination
psychic prison
carnival
functionalist
interpretive
emancipatory
postmodern

8. machine
organismFunctionalist
dominant view,
world seen as simple
and people unitary.
Code as an
unproblematic language.

9. What if the world is complex?

10. brain
fluxandtransformation Functionalist
Emphasis on the
intelligence of code:
cloud computing, big
digital infrastructures,
the ubiquity of code

11. Which leads to the question of
do we agree on how ”good” or
beneficial ”the code” is today?

12. Culture
Politicalsystem Interpretive
How do we jointly decide
how code is part of our
everyday lifes?

13. Instrumentof
domination Emancipatory
Do we decide?
Who makes the
development choices in a
program and what are
his interests

14. Psychicprison
Emancipatory
How do we let code
dictate our life

15. Carnival
Postmodern
The possibility to use
creative coding and code
as part of arts and crafts
✤ Demistify code
✤ Remystify and reclaim
code.

16. Our purpose
in describing and applying
these metaphors is not to
argue that one is better than
the other, or that a certain
view to an issue should be
followed.

17. Preliminary conclusions
• The aim should not be just on code and
programming as a skill (coding), but also as a
capability to better understand the world and
its structures.
—
• Need to understand the plurality of the
present and reflect on the needs of future
• —
• And this is increasingly important in the
future

19. Preliminary conclusions
• Identifying dominant metaphor helps to
understand the current direction
—
• Bringing alternative metaphors presents
alternative directions
—
• However, no one direction is sufficient by
itself; opening up and keeping issues and
views open

20. S t a ke h o l d e r s
Unitary Pluralist Coersive
Context/
System
Simple
Machine
Organism
Culture
Political
System
Psychic
Prison
Instrument of
domination
Complex
Brain
Flux &
Transformatio
n
Carnival