Code, like spoken or written language, can be a medium for aesthetic expression.

From stylistic differences between programmers to poems written by anonymous Perl coders, it offers a unique set of creative constraints. Source code is both univocal and ambivalent: it does not tolerate ambiguity in its interpretation, yet must remain intelligible to both machines and humans. As such, it exists as a cultural form, seen in playful esoteric languages, contests to create the most obfuscated programs, or elegantly written pieces of computer malware.

But source code also exists within culture. Written by humans embedded in specific imaginaries and practices, it reflects the context in which it is produced. It can, for instance, express hacker culture, where technical knowledge and skills are intertwined with insider jokes, or reflect feminist struggles when code becomes a means of artistic and political expression. In a broader sense, it arises from a largely homogeneous population – predominantly white, male, and located in the Global North – one in which non-English speech is often treated as an oddity and gender imbalances remain firmly entrenched.