---
title: "Communities of computing"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "concept"
status: "watching"
canonical_name: "Communities of computing"
aliases: ["computings"]
first_seen: "2026-08-18T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["Michael Mahoney","history of computing","protean machine","technological determinism"]
seek_code_commit: "17d9798"
---


Michael Mahoney's organizing term, from his 2005 essay "The Histories of
Computing(s)," for the disciplinarily distinct groups of practitioners —
scientists and engineers, data processing, management science, industrial
automation, communications, the military, human–computer interaction,
computer science — each of which built the version of the computer its own
agendas needed, and each of which therefore has its own history rather than
sharing one machine-centred history. The title's parenthetical "(s)" names
the plural directly: not computing, but computings. Central to Mahoney's
rejection of inevitability-narrative, machine-centred history; watching for
recurrence elsewhere in the vault's history-of-computing thread before
promotion to a full hub.

## References
- [[claim-mahoney-impact-theory-critique-restores-agency-to-communities-of-computing]]
- [[claim-mahoney-warned-against-whig-history-of-computing]]
- Capture: 2026-08-18-what-does-michael-mahoneys-own-the-histories-of