jgsmith's blog

When I work on a computer, be it building up the infrastructure or creating a fairly complex web application, I work with layers. Each layer does its own thing and builds on the previous layers while leaving itself open enough that it can be used to build the next higher layer. This comes in part from my experience with FORTH, a stack-based language that organizes code into dictionaries of word definitions so that the programmer works entirely bottom-up. The result is often a set of tools for attacking a problem instead of a monolithic application.

My system administration work for the last year has focused on doing what I can to eliminate as many of the non-humanities concerns as possible from the front end of a digital humanities project. We can worry about getting a large server when the project requires more CPU or memory or disk than we can offer. If we need to have a dedicated server for a project, then there are enough people who find that project useful that they generate that much traffic. At that point, the project should be important enough to garner grants or other financial support.

With the new semester, we have a new website for the Digital Humanities Commons. The DH village green. The area where we can all come together on common ground that belongs to no one and everyone. With that in mind, we've moved almost all of the old content to this new site and added a few capabilities to support the Commons.

This last year has been busy and fun. Based on conversations I've had with others in the Digital Humanities Program, 2009 looks to be at least as busy and interesting. We've come quite a ways since I was hired in November, 2007.

I've been to five conferences evangelizing what we are doing here at TAMU in the digital humanities, ranging from workshops in the digital humanities (DHSI) to impromptu gatherings of scholars (THATCamp) to industry conferences.