Code Toolkit: Python, Fall 2020

Week 2 — Homework assignment

Due: Tuesday, September 15, 8pm

0. Review this week's lecture notes.
1. Complete the reading that we initially talked about last week. Add a comment block at the top of your code with some notes from the reading. Include 3-5 quotations that you found interesting, and add a few sentences explaining how you see connections between this reading, this first programming exercise this semester, or your past experience with coding.

   Lev Manovich. The Language of New Media, Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 2002. Chapter 1 (pages 18-55)

2. Syntax Practice : Do the following debugging exercise: spot the differences. There are 8 differences between those two images. Indicate where all the differences are, and using the rules of Python Processing syntax, indicate whether or not each difference will cause an error. You can indicate the differences using whatever format you'd like — you can use Preview (Mac), Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop or Acrobat, or simply print them out and use pen or pencil and scan or photograph the result.

   Name your file "week 2 puzzle" and upload it to Google Drive with your homework this week.

3. Adding variance

   You can take your code from last week as a starting point, or you can start with something completely new.

   Based on the "boxes" in-class example, add some variables to your code. Follow the same format that I did in terms of putting variable assignments first, and all your drawing code beneath that, keeping these two parts of your program separate. Use at least 4 variables. Use the variables to add variance into your sketch. Use these variables in some combined way, using arithmetic. For example, if you were drawing a person, say you drew the person's head at the y value of 25. If you then added a bodyHeight and legHeight variables, you might draw the person's shoes at 25 + bodyHeight + legHeight. The idea is that you can change the variable values and the rest of your drawing code will adjust and still fit or line up.

   Run your code and see how it looks. Take a screenshot. Now, without changing any of your draw code, change only the variable values, and re-run your code. Take another screenshot and compare the results. Experiment with running your code this way several times. The idea is that by only changing the variable values, without changing any drawing code you should be able to achieve a varied range of output possibilities.

4. Layering

   (Instructions modified for clarity.) Take your code from part 3 above as a starting point, and use the following code as a guide:

   week02_hw_part2_start.pyde

   Follow the instructions in the TODOs that I've made in comments of that file. There are 5 TODOs.

   Parts of this are probably confusing since we haven't talked about setup() and draw() yet. But this will lead in to the main topic for next week.

5. Create a folder in Google Drive called "homework02". Upload both sketches into this folder, calling them "part3" and "part4".

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