Code Toolkit: Python, Fall 2020: Schedule

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• Week 1 (Weds, Sept 2) — Thinking like a computer?

  • Introductions
  • About the course
  • What is a program?
  • The Processing Development Environment ("PDE")
  • Drawing with numbers
  • The window as a grid of pixels

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes (We also talked about this land acknowledgement.)
  • First half — Syllabus discussion, course overview:
    Zoom recording (with subtitles), searchable text transcript with timestamps
  • Second half — Introduction to Python/Processing syntax and drawing with numbers:
    Zoom recording (with subtitles), searchable text transcript with timestamps

  Reading

  • Lev Manovich. The Language of New Media, Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 2002. Chapter 1 (pages 18-55). UPDATE: Now due Tues, Sept 15, with homework 2; we will discuss in class on Weds, Sept 16 (week 3)

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Sept 8, 8pm

• Week 2 (Weds, Sept 9) — Adding variance

  • Variables
  • Arithmetic (+, -, *, /)
  • Introduction to random()

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes
  • Zoom recording (with subtitles), searchable text transcript with timestamps, group chat log

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Sept 15, 8pm

• Week 3 (Weds, Sept 16) — Adding interactivity

  • Code blocks and frames (setup() and draw())
  • Debugging (with println())
  • Mouse interaction (mouseX and mouseY, pmouseX and pmouseY)
  • map()
  • User testing (and Export Application)

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes
  • Zoom recording (with subtitles), and searchable text transcript with timestamps

  Reading

  Due Tue, Sept 29, with homework 4; we will discuss in class on Weds, Sept 30 (week 5).
  • Selections from Matthew Fuller, Software Studies: A Lexicon: Introduction, "Algorithm", "Code", "Programmability", and "Source Code". PLEASE NOTE: I have included several other chapters from this book in case you are curious. (All included chapters are indicated with highlighting in the table of contents.) They are all great, but you only need to consider the five mentioned above as the required sections for this reading. We will return to the "Data Visualization" chapter in two weeks.

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Sept 22, 8pm

• Week 4 (Weds, Sept 23) — Making things move

  • Conditionals if and else
  • Keyboard interaction
  • Motion

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes
  • Zoom recording with subtitles, and searchable text transcript with timestamps

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Sept 29, 8pm

• Midterm project assignment.
  Assigned Wednesday, September 30;
  due: Monday, October 26, 8pm; for in-class presentation and discussion on Wednesday, October 28.

• Week 5 (Weds, Sept 30) — Adding repetition

  • Loops
  • Timing (Moved to next week.)

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes
  • Zoom recording with subtitles, and searchable text transcript with timestamps

  Reading

  Due Tues, Oct 13, with week 6 homework, for discussion in class on Weds, Oct 14.
  • "Data Visualization", from Matthew Fuller's Software Studies: A Lexicon
  • Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein, "Unicorns, Janitors, Ninjas, Wizards, and Rock Stars," from Data Feminism, MIT Press, 2020

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Oct 6, 8pm

• Week 6 (Weds, Oct 7) — Timing and state

  • Timing
  • State: a new way to use variables
  • Lists (Moved to next week.)

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes
  • Zoom recording with subtitles, searchable text transcript with timestamps

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Oct 13, 8pm

• Week 7 (Weds, Oct 14) — Working with many things (lists), and modularity (function)

  • Lists (If you're paying close attention, I was calling this topic "arrays", but have updated it to "lists" to be more accurate in terms of what we'll be working with in Python.)
  • Functions: for project planning, reusability and modularity (Addressed briefly this week; we will continue the discussion next week.)

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes
  • No Zoom recording this week due to some technical snafus.

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Oct 20, 8pm

  Reading
  Note: due Tues, Oct 20, with this week's homework, for discussion on Weds, Oct 21.

  • Alex Galloway, "Gamic Action, Four Moments", chapter 1 (pages 1-38) from Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture. If this is too long, you can focus on the introduction (pages 1-8) and the section titled "The Play of the Structure" (pages 25-38).
  • (Optional.) Claus Pias, The Game Player’s Duty: The User as the Gestalt of the Ports

• Week 8 (Weds, Oct 21) — Midterm project work and review as needed

  • Midterm project work

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

• Week 9 (Weds, Oct 28) — Midterm project presentations and discussion

  • Midterm project presentations

• Week 10 (Weds, Nov 4)

  • We took a breather today ...

  Reading
  Note: due Tues, Nov 17, 8pm, with week 11 homework, for discussion on Weds, Nov 18.

  • Alex Galloway and Eugene Thacker, "Protocol and Counter-Protocol", 2003

• Week 11 (Weds, Nov 11) — Data serialization: for storage and communication

  • Introduction to Python outside of Processing with Atom and the command line
  • Another data structure: Dictionaries
  • Serialization with JSON
  • An experiment with networking

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes
  • Zoom recording with subtitles, searchable text transcript with timestamps, group chat log

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Nov 17, 8pm

• Final project assignment
  Assigned Wednesday, November 18;
  due: Monday, December 14, 8pm; for in-class presentation and discussion on Wednesday, December 16.

• Week 12 (Weds, Nov 18) — Network protocols

  • Networking and the web

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes
  • Zoom recording with subtitles, searchable text transcript with timestamps, group chat log
  I noticed that there are some points of the Zoom recording where the subtitles are obscuring key parts of text that I'm typing into the command shell. I just wanted to remind you that if that is getting in the way for you, you can easily turn the captions on or off by clicking the "CC" icon in the Google drive video player, here:

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Nov 24 December 1, 8pm

• Wednesday, November 25 — NO CLASS — Happy Thanksgiving!

• Week 13 (Weds, Dec 2) — Saving data in a database

  • Working with a simple SQLite database to implement an API
  • Final project concepts due for feedback via email

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes — Please note that we did not talk about this material this week, and instead will revist it on Dec 9.

  • In class this week, instead of talking about new material in the above lesson notes, we reviewed all the topics since the midterm. We did this primarily by working through and revising a student homework assignment (Thanks, Elisabeth, for sharing!) You can see all that work in the following files:

    • styles.css
    • mad-lib.html
    • cgi-bin/server.py Note that this file should be in a cgi-bin subfolder with permissions set appropriately. See week 11 lesson notes for a reminder of how to do this.
    • Or download a zip file of all those files here.

  • Zoom recording with subtitles, searchable text transcript with timestamps, group chat log

  Homework

  • Homework assignment. Note that this was not actually assigned as we used this class session for review rather than working through the lesson plan for this week. Consider this an optional / extra credit assignment.

• Week 14 (Weds, Dec 9) — Final project work

  • Final project work

  Class artifacts

  • We began class by talking about the database material from week 13, so refer back to the week 13 class notes for that material (also linked above).
  • Class notes - These are the notes for the "Putting things together" final project review
  • Zoom recording with subtitles, searchable text transcript with timestamps, group chat log

• Week 15 (Weds, Dec 16) — Final projects

  • Final project presentations and discussion