“This guide invites you to experiment with ways to stay with the trouble of software. In it you will find a set of practical and impractical tools for the tactical (mis)use of software, empowering and enabling users to resist embedded paradigms and assumptions. It is a collection of methods for approaching software, experiencing its myths and realities, its risks and benefits. Drawing on theories of software and computation developed in the wilderness of academia and through rigorously undisciplined research, we grounded our methods in hands-on exercises and experiments that you can now try at home. These methods were developed in and inspired by the context of software production, hacker culture, software studies, computer science research, Free Software communities, privacy activism, and artistic practice. Exploring and cross-contaminating ways of looking from these different milieus, we realised that reading is not enough. Software is not just text, formats are always already in execution, code produces its own normative perspective and depth of field.”
https://observatory.constantvzw.org/tgsoguide_1806051351.pdf
