Sign-Oriented Programming

In A Theory of Computer Semiotics, Peter Bøgh Andersen introduces the concept of sign-oriented programming. Within this alternative paradigm, the execution of a program, Andersen writes, “is regarded as a manifestation of a play,” with the actors being computer-based signs, and the script being the source code. To reiterate one of the central ideas in the book, that the user interface emerges as the software is used, he writes that the aim of a computer-based play is “giving its audience experience of and insight into either a real or imaginary part of the world.”

He models his definition on object-oriented programming, as it is “the one that comes closest to” the requirements he has identified for computer-based signs. For instance, objects (in OOP) are quite similar to computer-based signs, in that they have attributes and actions. But only objects that possess “visual or auditory properties that have function relative to the meaning of the program execution,” Andersen writes, would be classified as computer-based signs.

I find this very interesting. Currently, I’m exploring enterprise architecture, so I’m thinking about what a sign-oriented enterprise architecture would be like. As the point with an enterprise architecture is to unify an enterprise, and since this requires communication, it should be meaningful to think about the semiotics of enterprise architecture.