Proposal Reviews from MIT Press

10 PRINT... is a deep reading of a one-line BASIC Commodore 64 program. Through its model case, the book explains how to read code deeply and why one would want to do so. Instead of discussing "software" abstractly, this book takes a particular (very short) program for a particular platform as its object of study. By doing so, the book reveals how the Commodore 64, the BASIC programming language, and the culture of recreational programming engage essential elements of creative computing. At the same time, the book considers how the program it focuses upon deals with broad questions of computational interest: Randomness, iteration, and methods of displaying results. By reading this program deeply, we explain why it is important to consider both the very specific (the C64 platform, the context of creation, and even the PETSCII character set) and why it is necessary to connect a program to computational practices across platforms and throughout history.

10 PRINT... is a deep reading of a one-line BASIC Commodore 64 program. Through its model case, the book explains how to read code deeply and why one would want to do so. Instead of discussing "software" abstractly, this book takes a particular (very short) program for a particular platform as its object of study. By doing so, the book reveals how the Commodore 64, the BASIC programming language, and the culture of recreational programming engage essential elements of creative computing. At the same time, the book considers how the program it focuses upon deals with broad questions of computational interest: Randomness, iteration, and methods of displaying results. By reading this program deeply, we explain why it is important to consider both the very specific (the C64 platform, the context of creation, and even the PETSCII character set) and why it is necessary to connect a program to computational practices across platforms and throughout history.