Before doing this week’s lab, I had almost no real coding background. I’ve been learning a little bit of R for my statistics homework, but HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are entirely new to me. After completing two HTML Dog tutorials (one in HTML and one in JavaScript), I’ve decided that I fall firmly into the camp that humanities students should learn at least a basic level of coding, even if they never plan to become programmers.
As Kirschenbaum argues, “Humanities students are to understand virtual worlds as rhetorical and ideological spaces, just as film and the novel are likewise understood as forms of representation and rhetoric.” This line made a lot of sense to me while I worked through the tutorials. The more I experimented with markup and scripting, the more I began to see websites not as mysterious technical objects but as constructed spaces: structured, intentional, and full of design choices. Even something simple like deciding how a heading appears or how a button behaves involves rhetorical decisions. If humanities scholars are already trained to analyze media critically, why not include the digital mediums that dominate modern life?
Before this class, I had only used R for statistics. That’s very different from the more foundational web languages we used in this assignment. R has specific commands and statistical outputs, while HTML/CSS/JS feel more like building blocks for shaping content and interaction. Going through the tutorials was surprisingly manageable, and it helped that the exercises were small, clear, and hands-on.
Raw code
<html>
<body>
<h1> Output: </h1>
<br>
<p> Here is one Fun Fact about Owls </p>
<a href = "#Fun Fact" style= "color: blue;">Go to Fun Fact </a>
<br>
<br>
<h2 id = "Fun Fact"> Fun Fact </h2>
<p> Owls can turn their heads 270 degrees around because they cannot move their eyes on their own. </p>
</body>
</html>Here is a small snippet I wrote while learning which creates a button that jumps the viewer to the bottom of the page. (you can view it in function below)
This little example helped me understand how HTML creates structure, CSS creates styling, and JavaScript can add behavior (even though this version uses only HTML/CSS).
Learning even a little bit of code opens up new avenues for understanding how digital projects function. It also makes it easier to meaningfully “hack” or modify DH tools instead of treating them as black boxes. Coding doesn’t need to be a gatekeeping skill; instead, it can be a way for humanities students to participate more fully in the creation and interpretation of digital knowledge.
Output:
Here is one Fun Fact about Owls
Go to Fun FactFun Fact
Owls can turn their heads 270 degrees around because they cannot move their eyes on their own.
