Code Toolkit: Python, Spring 2024: Schedule

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Weekly plan: class notes, assignments, etc

• Week 1 (Weds, January 24) — 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

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, January 30, 8pm

• Week 2 (Weds, January 31) — 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, Jan 30, 8pm in the reading response Google Doc; we will discuss for 30-40 minutes in class.

  Class artifacts

  • Slide presentation (Manovich)
  • Class notes

  Homework

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

• Week 3 (Weds, February 7) — Adding interactivity

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

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

  Homework

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

• Week 4 (Weds, February 14) — Making things move

  • Conditionals if and else
  • Keyboard interaction
  • Motion

  Reading (to discuss in class today)

  • Miriam Posner, "JavaScript is for Girls" [or a PDF here]
  • Janet Abbate, "Coding Is Not Empowerment", from Your Computer is On Fire, MIT Press, 2021
  • Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu and Lauren Kirchner, "Machine Bias", ProPublica, 2016. [or a PDF here].
  
  Reading response due Tues, February 13, 8pm in the reading response Google Doc; we will discuss for 30-40 minutes in class.

  Class artifacts

  • Slides from reading discussion of texts this week
  • Class notes

  Homework

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

• Midterm project assignment.
  Assigned Wednesday, February 14.
  Due dates: Monday, March 25, 8pm for peer review; Wednesday, March 27 for in-class presentation & discussion; and Friday, March 29 for submission of final draft.

• Week 5 (Weds, February 21) — Adding repetition

  • Loops

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, February 27, 8pm.

• Week 6 (Weds, February 28) — Working with many things (lists)

  • Data structures: lists

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

    Reading (to discuss in class today)

    The readings for today offer us a chance to go deeper into 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, February 27, 8pm in the reading response Google Doc; we will discuss for 30-40 minutes in class.

  Homework

  • Homework assignment, due Tues, March 5, 8pm.

    Please note: there is another reading to prepare for discussion in class next week. See below. As with this week, the text for next week is related to one of the two midterm options, and so I hope will help you think about your plan for that.

    Also please note, your midterm planning document is also due Friday, March 8. Please refer back to the midterm assignment for details.

• Week 7 (Weds, March 6) — Timing, state, and modularity (functions)

  (Update: Due to the strike, this class was held asynchronously. Lecture was delivered via video. The reading planned for this week will be discussed after spring break. Please complete your reading responses in the Google Doc as normal in preparation for the discussion, due March 19.)

  • Timing
  • State: a new way to use variables
  • Functions: for project planning, reusability and modularity (To be addressed briefly this week; we will continue the discussion next week.)

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes
  • Video of lecture with subtitles (1h 18min), and a complete transcript with timestamps

  Homework

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

  Reading (to discuss in class today)

  Note: due Tues, March 5, with this week's homework for discussion on Weds, March 6.
  Update: We will discuss this text in class on Wednesday, March 20.
  • 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

• No class on March 13. Have a restful and restorative Spring Break

• Week 8 (Weds, March 20) — Midterm project work and review as needed

  • Midterm project work

  Class artifacts

  • Slides from reading discussion of Galloway text
  • Class notes (Brief discussion of some concepts useful for midterm projects: sprites and collision detection).

  Reading (to discuss in class today)

  Please see the Galloway chapter above. We will discuss this text in class today. Please complete your responses in the reading response document as usual in preparation for today's class, due Tuesday, March 19.

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

  • Midterm project presentations

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

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

  Note: In preparation for class today, please take a minute to install the Visual Studio Code IDE. I have provided some instructions here (PDF).

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

  Homework

  • Homework assignment

• Final project assignment

  Assigned Wednesday, April 17;
  due: Monday, May 6, 8pm; for in-class presentation and discussion on Wednesday, May 8, and final draft submission by Friday, May 10.

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

  • Data serialization with JSON
  • File input and output

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes

  Homework

  • Homework

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

  • Networking and the web

  Class artifacts

  • Class notes
  • Slides from our discussion of the reading

  Reading (to discuss in class today)

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

  Homework

  • The only homework this week is to make sure that you can get the code from our class lesson working. That's the code in the above class notes up to step 4, adding a size property to both myCreature and creatureList.

• Week 13 (Weds, April 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

  • Class notes

  Homework

  • No homework this week. Use your time to work on your final project concept and implementation.

    Please come to class next week with questions — things that I might review for the class as a whole or questions you have specific to your project that I can help you with.

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

  • Course material review & final project work

  Class artifacts

  • Notes to come ...

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

  • Final project presentations and discussion

• Fri, May 10:

  Final drafts of final projects due via Google Drive upload & Zoom presentation.

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