TITLE: "Algorithm" is not a Postmodern Concept
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: April 08, 2016  4:27 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:

Ken Perlin's
<A HREF="http://blog.kenperlin.com/?p=17202">
   The Romantic View of Programming</A>
opens:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 I was attending a panel recently on the topic of new
 media art that seemed to be culturally split.  There
 were panelists who were talking about abstract concepts
 like "algorithm" as though these were arcane postmodern
 terms, full of mysterious power and potential menace.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

I encounter this sort of thinking around my own campus.
Not everyone needs to learn a lot about computer science,
but it would be nice if we could at least alleviate this
misunderstanding.

An algorithm is not
<A HREF="http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/11/origin-word-abracadabra/">
   a magic incantation</A>,
even when its implementation seems to perform magic.  For
most people, as for Perlin, an algorithm is ultimately a
means toward a goal.  The article closes with the most
important implication of the author's romantic view of
programming: "And if some software tool you need doesn't
exist, you build it."  That can be as true for a new media
artist as it is for a run-of-the-mill programmer like me.
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