Words that act

When I was preparing for the GHP I was working closely with people who knew how to operate computers at the time. During my studies at the University of Amsterdam I had had computer training, having to learn to work with SPSS. The mundane typing of letters as a command to make the machine do something was very bizarre to me at the time. There seemed to be no connection between the commands and the effect they would have. Today, after so many years of experience, and with mostly graphical interfaces to help us operate machines, this alienating effect has diminished, up to the point that it has nearly disappeared. Nevertheless, computers are programmed. Programming is writing with the ultimate effect of making a 5 Volt current go or not. We write Ones and Zeros to make this happen. After the ones and zeros the 'and' and 'or' appear, and then words. Lots of words, numbers and typewriter symbols. For programmers today, there are many languages available for writing code. They believe and know from experience that their writing will actually have an effect and the machine will move. They are used to the fact that their words and signs are 'acts'.