I have more questions about DH than ideas about how to meaningfully contribute, so I decided to find an effective way to ask questions of experienced DHers online. Although in class we’re learning a lot about DH values, politics, terminology, etc, something I’ve been wanting to know is how scholars in the humanities learn the practical skills (coding, programming, etc.) to actually do DH. So, I experimented with the question, “How did you learn to code?” My first attempt on twitter was, as I expected it to be, both nerve-racking and unsuccessful. I searched around to figure out which accounts/hashtags might generate a response, but my question required a longer answer than twitter makes easily possible.
The DHanswers twitter page led me to “Digital Humanities Questions & Answers,” a board sponsored by the Association for Computers and the Humanities. I registered and posted my question there:
A cool thing about this board is that it automatically generates a tweet on the DHanswers page. Needless to say, this tweet received much more attention that my first tweet on my own page recieved.
I was encouraged by a very prompt thorough response.
Responders note that the vagueness of my question makes it hard for them to provide a specific answer, but they suggest resources that I am excited to explore. I was highly skeptical that anyone out in cyberspace would take the time to provide a thoughtful response, especially to some grad student they’ve never heard of. However, I’m now motivated by the availability of this resource.
