GoKawiilCultures of making and relating 2026-06-25 science, scientific software
Cultures of Programming - The Development of Programming Concepts and Methodologies is a recent book by Tomáš Petříček that analyses the history of programming from the perspective of five interwoven cultures. It contains a lot of interesting insight, so I encourage you to read it. At the very least, read the first chapter. In this post, I try to relate these five cultures to the wider world of technology, and to the practices of scientific research.
The five cultures identified in the book are the following (my summaries):
Mathematical culture sees computer programs as mathematical entities whose properties are amenable to proof.
Hacker culture sees programming as a conversation with a machine as it runs.
Engineering culture sees programs as technical artifacts whose construction according to established best practices is a trade-off between desirable properties and economic constraints.
Management culture sees software as an industrial product whose qualities depend on suitable organisation structures.
Humanist culture sees computation and programs as extensions and externalisations of human thought and notations.
Individuals typically adopt a primary culture that defines their main attitude towards programming, but also take the points of view of other cultures depending on context.
My first observation is that these five cultures fall into two categories:
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