Recent public attention to the World Wide Web has thrust one tip of the informational
iceberg into prominence; but there are many others as well. The Web has
achieved its current status by the refiguration of the computer as an instrument
of communication, in addition to its roles in writing, figuring, drawing,
and storing information. All of these activities are based, figuratively
and practically, on the human institution of
Language. This class will focus
on the mythological, historical, social, and technical aspects of this phenomenon.
Topics studied in this class include:
- the nature, history, and social conventions of the Internet
- the technology of literacy (fonts, wordprocessing, Usenet, e-mail, etc.)
- access to and distribution of information
- artificial intelligence and natural language processing
- user interface design
- regular expressions and searching strategies
- market forces involved in the computing world
- English as a world language
- differences among spoken, written, and electronic communication
- Metaphors we compute by.