"Writing as IT"

Joshua Porter, of Bokardo provides an excerpt from a book in development. The author, Bill Hart-Davidson, seeks feedback from readers. Snippets:

for most users of information technology, the digital, computational nature of the information they work with is all but invisible in the day-to-day tasks they do. And, more importantly, in the goals, hopes, and even the pragmatic activities and tasks that users engage information technology to accomplish, computation is conspicuously absent, even actively avoided. Through information technology, computation provides a medium for augmenting our ability to create and use information (Dourish, 2001). Writing, it turns out, does this too.
Traditional views of writing assume writers and readers are engaged in a special kind of conversation, one where the text stands in for one or more absent participants. My view of writing, on the other hand, assumes that writing is a medium, and that people are more often users of texts (as opposed to participants in a conversation); writing is not the focus of the action, but a powerful context for action.

Comments on this are welcome and encouraged at Bokardo, where the author is engaged in the dialogue.

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