To hypothesize from a ridiculously tiny experimental base: do code wonks and Theory wonks have the same fascinations? Postmodernists are extremely curious about the deep structures of our culture, and they’ll go so far as to say that our culture is what defines our atoms, not the other way around. Computer scientists interested in non-traditional domains (say, algorithmic video and sound composition, as opposed to efficient search algorithms) and especially those interested in the Internet are also arguing against the atoms. They won’t always talk about it, but they’re into re-arranging the creative and cultural universe into manageable structures; they’re implementing the structures the PoMo critics are exploring, actually hard-coding “units of meaning” into their software, or to take it up a metalevel, they’re implementing tools which have built-in assumptions about the structures the PoMo critics are exploring, like with VRML, or CSound, or MSWord. I think it all emerges from data instinct, that weird ability humans have to simply absorb ideas after enough time online, rather than knowledge […].

Paul Ford, “Notes for an Essay on Microsoft Word”