Just a few minutes ago I posted a “talk” session called Carpentry as a Way of Knowing. As an alternative to that session I want to propose actually doing the thing we’d be talking about in that other session: building a bot. This would be hands-on session in which we would collectively—or as individuals—build a Twitter bot. No experience required. I’ll say that again: No. Experience. Required. I’m no programmer, but I’ve built my share of bots, often in order to better understand the source material I’m working with. (See? See?—I am making as a way of knowing!) And if I can do it, anybody can.

I’m labeling this a “make” session instead of a “teach” session because I’m in no position to teach this subject (though apparently I do), but I can at least “coach” it. If this sessions runs, bring a laptop. I recommend installing node.js, a server-side Javascript engine, but that’s only because I’m most comfortable working in node, and I can provide a lot of node.js templates for Twitter bots. If you’re already familiar with another language, run with it. Python is a favorite among digital humanists, but frankly Python scares me. Node scares me too, but at least I’ve developed some coping mechanisms over the past 9 months of working in Node.

So what do you say? Shall we build a bot?