Code tinkering as a historian’s practical tool

My relationship with computers began in the mid-1980s, when swapping floppy disks and copying/adapting simple scripts felt more like code tinkering than programming. Back then, I was a historian who simply preferred computers over typewriters, not because I was a tech enthusiast, but because they helped me work faster and smarter. Decades later, that same pragmatism led me to get involved in coding: first, to help build tools for implementing archival standards like EAD/XML, later to help build a portal to collect and publish all that standardised archival metadata, and to create websites in Joomla for sharing the portal's project information in the process.See: https://www.archivesportaleurope.net, and it's - old Joomla - project websites: http://apenet.eu and: http://apex-project.eu. Now that same drive leads me to develop apps in Django to make my own research project's information accessible, to fool work with tools like Omeka-S, and - in the long run - to bring all this to another level using IIIF and LOD.

Unlike a trained software engineer, I’ve never approached coding as an end in itself. For me, it’s always been about solving tangible problems, whether standardising metadata for archives, automating repetitive tasks, or designing interfaces that connect people with the past. The technology has evolved dramatically since the 1980s, but the core idea remains: computers are tools, and coding is just a way to make them work *for* you, not the other way around. This perspective is rooted in the belief that you don’t need to be an expert programmer to harness the power of code. With curiosity, patience, and a focus on real-world needs, even a historian can use coding and coding tools to create meaningful, functional solutions. So, I will share some of the stuff I have been working on recently here.