In the pages that follow, I offer a typology of the annotations used in this reading of the code, which represent the first trail marks into the code.  No doubt as we develop the techniques of Critical Code Studies, we will establish others, even as we discard ones that seem less effective.  More likely, as with marginalia of all kinds, this process of annotation will be tied to the person and the context of their reading.  It is my hope that this initial move into the code will invite others to mark it up, to respond in the margins with their readings and insights.

Even as I write this analogy, I wonder, what is the water?  Is it some surprising comment? A telling variable name?  Or is it the logic of the program of itself made evident in tracing the methods and calls.  Or am I searching for something much less tangible, the progress of the program, the intentions of the programmer, the ideological underpinnings, the seepage of pragmatic technological constraints and affordances into the formulation of the artwork, hacktavist app?  It is far too premature to answer any of these questions. 

So please follow the path through this collection of catalog of annotation types, all the while looking for new sources of water.