Introduction

In the spirit of interdisciplinary inquiry into programming, this symposium will focus on "criticality in programming", and asking broadly "what is critical about programming?". Recalling the shared etymological root of "critical" with "crisis", we start from appreciating a critical moment, a crisis, as that which requires a decision, and thus sharp, unambiguous judgment, to dismiss any doubt. A crisis requires a critical assessment of a situation, and subsequent action, considering programming as both a reflexive and decisive action.

The initial crisis of programming, the so-called "software crisis" in the 1960s, was addressed through hardening of practices (Dijkstra 2007). Critically assessing the state of programming practices resulted in resolving a crisis by changing how programming is done. 

How was the engineering crisis conceived of in the first place? Then, what kinds of soft uncertainties were taken out to solve such a crisis? What kinds of methodologies (e.g. code reviews, proofs, tests, perpetual beta) and arrangements (e.g. specialisation and professionalisation) compose this hardening, and how were judgments passed as to whether the software engineering crisis had been averted? 

More recently, the development of tooling based on large language models might constitute a new critical moment. How should they be assessed when employed in the building of critical systems? What kind of crisis might it represent to existing conceptions and histories of programming?

Organisation

The event is part of the History and Philosophy of Computation commission, and is organized by Pierre Depaz (DHLab), Yannick Fritz (Medienwissenschaft) and Mace Ojala (Ruhr-Universität Bochum).

Registration

Attendance is free, please register by writing at basel-2026@hapoc.org. Registration