Every computer program is a model, hatched in the mind, of a real or mental process. These processes, arising from human experience or thought, are huge in number, intricate in detail, and at any time only partially understood. They are modeled to our permanent satisfaction rarely by our computer programs. Thus even though our programs are carefully handcrafted discrete collections of symbols, mosaics of interlocking functions, they continually evolve: we change them as our perception of the model deepens, enlarges, generalizes until the model ultimately attains a metastable place within still another model with which we struggle.
I think that this is a very nice description of what it's like to think like a programmer. Furthermore, it suggests the kind of role that blogging can play in the research process. Every time we post, we struggle to find a balance between getting it right and getting it written. If you put too little effort into a post, it comes across as lightweight, disposable. Too much effort and you eventually have something that you might as well send to a journal. The optimal blog post is timely enough to enter the flow of communication while the topic is still of interest, and substantive enough to travel. Most blog posts aren't optimal, of course, but that shouldn't stop us from trying.
So much for perfection of part. What about adequacy of collection? The advantage of having a research blog is that it serves as an archive of steps taken. Sometimes they seemed promising but went nowhere; sometimes an initial mis-step turned out to be very productive. Over time, the blog as a whole becomes more focused, more refined, a better model for processes "arising from human experience or thought." That is to say that the process of blogging, much like programming, can be one of stepwise refinement.
Somewhere in Discovering, Root-Bernstein has an anecdote about a scientist who wrote the most significant research questions on a blackboard in the lab, so they would always be in front of people and could be constantly modified to reflect new understandings. Blogs can serve the same purpose, placing an evolving set of questions and models before the members of a virtual lab.
Tags: digital history | information costs | programming | stepwise refinement | writing
