Code Toolkit: Python, Fall 2021: Schedule

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Weekly plan: class notes, assignments, etc

• Week 1 (Weds, Sept 1) — 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
  • Welcome slide presentation, including also talked about this land acknowledgement & community agreement.

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Sept 7, 8pm

• Week 2 (Weds, Sept 8) — Adding variance

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

  Reading (to discuss in class today)

  • Lev Manovich. The Language of New Media, Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 2002. Chapter 1 (pages 18-55). Please note that I am only asking you to read chapter 1 of this text (pages 18-55). The rest of it is also great, and I've included a PDF of the entire thing. But I only plan to discuss chapter 1 in class. If you have already read this (I have assigned it in some other classes) then you might consider reading the Prologue and Introduction, or any other chapter that you think would be interesting for you.
    Reading response due Tues, Sept 7, 8pm in the reading response Google Doc; we will discuss for 30-40 minutes in class.

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes
  • Slide presentation (Mainly about the reading discussion.)
  • Zoom recording (with subtitles), searchable text transcript with timestamps

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Sept 14, 8pm

• Week 3 (Weds, Sept 15) — 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

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Sept 21, 8pm

• Midterm project assignment.
  Assigned Wednesday, September 22;
  due: Monday, October 25, 8pm; for peer review on Tuesdaay, and in-class presentation & discussion on Wednesday, October 27.

• Week 4 (Weds, Sept 22) — Making things move

  • Conditionals if and else
  • Keyboard interaction
  • Motion

  Reading (to discuss in class today)

  • 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 later this semester.
    Reading response due Tues, Sept 21, 8pm in the reading response Google Doc; we will discuss for 30-40 minutes in class.

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Sept 28, 8pm

• Week 5 (Weds, Sept 29) — Adding repetition

  • Loops

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Oct 5, 8pm. Please note: there is a reading to prepare for discussion in class next week. See below. The text is related to the midterm, and so will hopefully help you think about that as we approach the due date for your midterm project propsoal.

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

  • Timing
  • State: a new way to use variables

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

    Reading (to discuss in class today)

    The readings for today offer us a chance to go deeper into thinking our thinking about what this thing called data visualization really is, to think about it's various biases and controversies, and what it does well. I hope it will help you think about what you might work on for the midterm project.
    
    

  • "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

    Reading response due Tues, Oct 5, 8pm in the reading response Google Doc; we will discuss for 30-40 minutes in class.

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Oct 12, 8pm.

    Please note: there is a reading to prepare for discussion in class next week. See below. As last week, this text is related to a midterm option, and so I hope will help you think about your plan for that.

    Also please note, your midterm planning document is also due on Tues, Oct 12. Please have a look at the midterm assignment for details.

• Week 7 (Weds, Oct 13) — Working with many things (lists), and modularity (functions)

  • Data structures: Lists
  • Functions: for project planning, reusability and modularity (To be addressed briefly this week; we will continue the discussion next week.)

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Oct 19, 8pm.

  Reading (to discuss in class today)

  Note: due Tues, Oct 12, with this week's homework, for discussion on Weds, Oct 13.
  • 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 20) — Midterm project work and review as needed

  • Midterm project work
  • We'll need 2-4 people to present today instead of next week.

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

• Week 9 (Weds, Oct 27) — Midterm project presentations and discussion

  • Midterm project presentations

• Week 10 (Weds, Nov 3) — Python outside of Processing

  • Introduction to Python outside of Processing with Atom and the command line
  • Another data structure: Dictionaries

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

  Homework

  • No homework this week :)

• Final project assignment. Assigned Wednesday, November 10;
  due: Monday, December 6, 8pm; for in-class presentation and discussion on Wednesday, December 8.

• Week 11 (Weds, Nov 10) — Data serialization: for storage and communication

  • Data serialization with JSON
  • File input and output

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, Nov 16, 8pm

• Week 12 (Weds, Nov 17) — Network protocols

  • Networking and the web

  Class artifacts

  We ended up spending our class session reviewing homework from last week:
  • week11-hw-review-part3a.py
  • week11-hw-review-part3b.py
  • week11-hw-review-part4.py

  Then we built on the homework by modifying our word look-up program so that it saves the dictionary into a JSON file when it exits, and reads from that file when it first runs.

  • week12-json.html

  Reading (to discuss in class today)

  Note: due Tues, Nov 16, 8pm (with week 11 homework) for discussion on Weds, Nov 17.
  • Alex Galloway and Eugene Thacker, " Protocol and Counter-Protocol", 2003

  Homework

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

• Week 13 (Weds, Nov 24) — Saving data in a database

  • Working with a simple SQLite database to implement an API
  • This week we'll work on a networking exercise, and we'll move the lesson about working with a database to next week.
  • Final project concepts due for feedback via email

  Class artifacts

  We started class by building on the code example from last week, adding error handling via two methods:
  • week11-hw-review-error-handling1.py: Using the os library and the os.path.exists() command
  • week11-hw-review-error-handling2.py: Using a try except block

  Then we proceeded through the lesson here:

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

  Homework

  • Homework assignment.

• Week 14 (Weds, Dec 1) — Final project work

  • Final project work: Networking

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

• Week 15 (Weds, Dec 8) — Final projects

  • Final project presentations and discussion
  • More work together on networking with Python

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

Lesson: Adding CSS to CGI output

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

  Final projects due via Google Drive upload & Zoom presentation. If you cannot make it to a Zoom session at our regular class time on Dec 15, please email me to arrange a time when we can review your final project together via Zoom.

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