Technology is an amazing thing that we take advantage of every day. Think about it… You post pictures of yourself, share private information, and let people know where you are without even thinking about it. Technology is an easy way of sharing intimate parts of your life with others, and we use it because we think it is trustworthy. I thought the same thing, until I read a book that changed my perspective.

Over the past two weeks, my class has been reading a novel called Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. While reading this book, my class was asked to think about this driving question: “How has technology acted as a disruption with its creation throughout history?”. While reading this book, I noticed that the technology was very powerful, but not very different from what we have today. Cameras, trackers, and surveillance of all kinds, were placed around the city of San Francisco in an attempt to spy on people. These sources of technology, like the ones we have today, were not created with the intent of loosing the trust and invading the privacy of citizens. However, in the wrong hands and with the right skills, these powerful devises can be manipulated to do more than just invade privacy.

The main character of Little Brother, Marcus Yallow, discovered how untrustworthy the pieces of technology around him were becoming, and decided to do something about it. Throughout the book, the characters were programming and coding to hack the disruptive technology around them. One time they did this, was when Marcus hacked the tracking devices in San Francisco by jamming the system.

Programming is a skill that is used in multiple ways every day, not just for hacking. You may not realize it, but most things on a screen have been produced by programming. What is programming and why is it so popular?

Programming is the action of telling a computer to do a task through a series of clear instructions. These sets of instructions are called codes, yes, like the ones you see when someone is hacking a computer in a movie. The only difference is that programming is much easier in real life, compared to how it seems in the movies. Although programming is a simple task that anyone can learn to do today, it wasn’t always like that.

Programming uses a variety of computer “languages,” which include Java, C++, and many more. Programming began with a language called Plankalkül, that consisted of a series of 0’s and 1’s. This computer language has flourished into the countless languages that we have and use today. Having more languages might seem intimidating, but it really means that it is easier to do things you want in a faster manner. People are learning to use new languages of programming every day, including classes at my school. My class, along with others, have been using an app called Swift Playgrounds to learn how to code from scratch. Apps like this, are making it possible for anyone to learn how to be an expert programmer.

Now that programming is simple, and in some cases even fun, there’s a dilemma. More and more people are learning how to program every day, since many people believe that it is the language of the future. With programming, you can ask a computer to do almost anything if you have the right codes, so imagine what you could ask a robot to do. This thought brings me back to the book, Little Brother. The technology mentioned in that novel is very similar to what we have today, so what is stoping us from facing the same problems they did. If someone has poor intentions when programming, their imagination is the limit of what they can do.

They just need the right code.

Bibliography:

MRsiFon. “History Of Programming (Educational Video).” YouTube, YouTube, 7 June 2012, m.youtube.com/watch?v=tzUbxALPcyw.

“Computer Programming.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Jan. 2018, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming.

“What Is Programming?” Khan Academy, www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/programming/intro-to-programming/v/programming-intro.

“Timeline of Programming Languages.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Jan. 2018, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_programming_languages.

“What Is The Programming Language Of The Future?” Simple Programmer, 2 May 2017, simpleprogrammer.com/2017/05/04/programming-language-future/.

David Curry davidatfreelance@gmail.com Contributing Writer, et al. “IoT and Coding: The Most Important IoT Programming Languages.” ReadWrite, 10 July 2016, readwrite.com/2016/07/08/programming-languages-iot-pt2/.

Kirk. “Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.” Guys Lit Wire, 1 Jan. 1970, guyslitwire.blogspot.ca/2015/08/little-brother-by-cory-doctorow.html.

“Computer Hacker Pictures, Images and Stock Photos.” Royalty Free Computer Hacker Pictures, Images and Stock Photos – IStock, www.istockphoto.com/ca/photos/computer-hacker?excludenudity=true&sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=computer%2Bhacker.