CSC111 Class Page 2015

--D. Thiebaut (talk) 15:00, 13 January 2015 (EST)

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Main Page | Syllabus | Weekly Schedule | Links & Resources |Piazza|TA Hours

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Week 1 Jan 26

Topics: Introduction, Python, Idle, Piazza, Moodle submission	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday Syllabus Introduction to CSC111 Lecture notes Wednesday Introduction to Idle, the integrated development environment (IDE) for the class Playing with our programming language, Python. The idea this week is to use intuition to put some Python code together and make it generate different outputs We will use these concepts, that will be covered in details starting next week. variables strings of characters loops Introduction to the Lab (Wednesday and Thursday afternoon) Lecture notes Friday Review of Lab 1 Introduction to Homework 1, Q&A Go over a few problems, and understand how the def statement works. Variables Rules for labeling a variable CamelCase for regular variables, uppercase for constants Thinking of a variable as a box, or drawer. Variables can switch contents Lecture notes	Lab #1 Prep. Lab #1 Homework #1, due 2/3/15 at 11:55 p.m.	Lecture notes Read Chapter 1 in Zelle (textbook)

 

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Week 2 Feb 2

Topics: Chapter 2: variables, definite loops, input	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday: snow day! Wednesday Variables: simultaneous assignment Where do variables live? Programming: from problem to solution: an iterative process definite loops: looping through items in a list the range() function: allows iteration through various lists of numbers Input: getting information from the user (keyboard) Lecture notes Friday Julia Edwards and Marina Cheng, on Smithies in CS. Their presentation is available here. eval(input( "Enter number" ) ) vs input(eval( "Enter number" )) Programming Examples (see lecture notes) Lecture notes	Lab #2 Homework #2, due 2/10 at 11:55 p.m.	Read Chapter 2 in Zelle.

 

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Week 3 Feb 9

Topics: Arithmetic operators, math functions, main().	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday 2/9 4 minutes from Grier's video: When computers were human. Start at time=28m12s. Women at work tabulating during World War II (Shorpy) Program organization: from now on, we will be using a main() function. Operators: * / + - ** // % abs() The type() function tellerMachine.py example. Formatting numbers (see Section 5.8.2 in Zelle), and example program Wednesday 2/11 Accumulating results: summing up numbers, computing the factorial of a number. Programs developed in class Friday 2/13 Review of Lab 3 Introduction to Homework 3 What are bits? Lecture notes Additional lecture notes (Friday)	Lab #3 Homework #3	Chapter 3 in Zelle. Lecture notes Additional lecture notes (Friday) This section is only visible to computers located at Smith College You may find this paper more appropriate as an introduction to the field, or this one, as well.

 

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Week 4 Feb 16

Topics: Lists, Strings, Mutable vs. Immutable lists. File Processing.	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday Introduction to indexing in strings and lists. Introduction to slicing strings (and list) Lecture notes Wednesday: Rally Day, no class, no labs. Thursday: no labs. Friday Strings an Lists, continued Strings are immutable. Lists are not. Introduction to the concept of objects and methods: String methods Lecture notes	Homework #4 No Labs this week (because of Rally Day), but there is a Preparation page for the Homework (think of it as a lab to do on your own, and solution programs will be available).	Chapter 5 in Zelle.

 

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Week 5 Feb 23

Topics:	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday: 2/23 Files (End of Chapter 5) Functions (Chapter 6) Passing parameters to functions An example of a Python Utility with Functions Lecture notes Wednesday:2/25 Passing parameters to functions Functions returning values Programs developed in class Friday: 2/27 Functions that return values Writing a program that generates "personalized" poems (quotes?) for everybody in the class. (This program is available on Moodle, as it contains private information) Lecture notes	Lab #5, due 2/27 at 11:00 a.m. Homework #5, due 3/3 at 11:55 p.m.	Chapter 6 in Zelle: Functions

 

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Week 6 Mar 2

Topics:	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday 3/2 Boolean operators: < <= > >= != == The if statement if / if else Making decisions in Python Teller machine program ready for if-statements Exercises Lecture notes Wednesday 3/4 Practicing with functions Continuation of if-statements Lecture notes Programs developed in class Friday 3/6 Continuation of if-statements: Boolean Operators On the Turing Test and Eliza Lecture notes and addition.	Homework #6 Lab #6 will be given out in class, and is a series of review questions to prepare for the midterm. You can find it on this page.	Finish reading Chapter 6 (functions) in Zelle. Read Chapter 7 (If statements) in Zelle.

 

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Week 7 Mar 9

Topics:	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday 3/9 While Loops Graphics Programming Examples (see lecture notes) Lecture notes Wednesday 3/11 In Class Midterm (closed books, closed computers) Friday 3/13 Loops, Graphics, and more... and now, something completely different... Lecture notes	Lab #7 and accompanying submission page. No Homework 7 this week.	Indefinite loops are covered in Chapter 8. Graphics is covered in Chapter 4.

 

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Week 8 Mar 16

Topics:	Lab/Hw	Reading
SPRING BREAK If you get bored and want to do some programming in Python

 

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Week 8 Mar 23

Topics:	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday: 3/23 Review of Loops and Booleans Robustness of input While True loops break and continue Lecture notes Wednesday: 3/25 Playing the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors Program developed in class Lecture notes Friday: 3/27 Review Lab 8 Man in Hole stories. An introduction by Kurt Vonnegut Where to get books? From the Gutenberg eBook Project Recent articles about Man in the Hole: Man in Hole article, Paris Review of Books, Feb. 2015, Man in Deeper Hole, also in the Paris Review of Books, March 2015, and Only 6 book plots article, in Motherboard.vice.com, Feb. 2015. Can we program this in Python? A first approach: some programs Matthew Jockers at U. Nebraska, and link to his R-Package Extension of this type of work: Looking for words is massive amounts of text: MIT Technology Review article illustrates how data mining of twitter feed can reveal information about individual transformation/radicalization. Lecture notes	Lab #8 Homework #8 Midterm solutions	We're reviewing Chapter 8 in Zelle this week.

 

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Week 9 Mar 30

Topics:	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday: 3/30 Exceptions Classes and Objects Programs for lecture Lecture notes Wednesday: 4/1 Pair programming Cats, cats, cats Creating a Cat class Default string representation: __str__() A list of cats Reading cats from a CSV file Searching a list of objects Programs for lecture Lecture notes Friday: 4/3 Building a wheel, a car, a list of cars... Graphic Objects Horse objects. In the "Digital Horses" video, you get to see how the animators for the movie The Lord of the Rings create software objects to represent horses. In some parts of the video, below, you see that in some cases, horses are a collection of 3D shapes that are connected to each other, and move together around articulation points. This should remind you of how we built a car class around geometrical 2D objects. The video below shows similar examples of 3D objects, and lists of 3D objects where objects have their own behavior (the same way that our car objects have their own speed and direction of movement). Programs for lecture Lecture notes (You can go to this site to print graph paper)	Homework 9 Lab #9	Description of Graphics Library objects Section 7.4 in Zelle, on Exceptions Chapter 10: Defining Classes

 

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Week 10 Apr 6

Topics:	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday 4/6 A detour from classes and objects Nested for-loops for processing images RGB components Simple image transformations: shifting colors, black-and-white, borders, diagonals. Programs for lecture Lecture notes Wednesday 4/8 Creating a board and pieces for a game of checkers Programs for lecture Lecture notes Friday 4/10 Continue with checkers: adding interactivity Removing checkers pieces with the mouse Moving checkers pieces with the mouse Creating a virtual aquarium (inspiration) Fish images for a virtual aquarium Programs for lecture Lecture notes	Lab #10 Homework #10 Sample of Cool Solution Cars	No new material this week. Just playing with classes, objects, and graphics.

 

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Week 11 Apr 13

Topics:	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday 4/13 Aquarium with fish and bubbles Lists of lists: A quick way to process text information Programs for lecture Lecture notes Wednesday 4/15 Class Inheritance Programs for lecture Lecture notes Friday 4/17: Guest lecture: Matthew Cornell, Umass: Presentation of a Mobile App. in Python: PeepWeather.com	Lab #11 Homework #11	Chapter 11 in Zelle

 

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Week 12 Apr 20

Topics:	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday 4/20 A look at Zelle's grahic library and the hierarchy of classes. Some of the cars and trucks of Homework 10 Recursion and Recursive Functions Programs for lecture Lecture notes Wednesday 4/22 Continue with Recursion and Recursive Functions Factorial Visiting a Maze Programs for lecture Lecture notes Lecture notes (Animated Functions) Friday 4/24 More recursion: fractal tree, maze, chessboard, hanoi Programs for lecture Lecture notes	Lab #12 Homework #12	Chapter 13 in Zelle.

 

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Week 13 Apr 27

Topics:	Lab/Hw	Reading
Monday 4/27 Guest Lecture: Prof. Dana Leibsohn, Art Dept. Wednesday 4/29 Introduction to GUI Programming with TKInter Demo Application Programs for lecture Lecture notes If you are interested in playing with TKinter, here's a short tutorial on TKinter. This tutorial is totally optional and not required for the for final exam. Friday 5/1 Presentation of the Final Exam	No homework assignments this week! Lab 13

Links and Resources

Graphics

• Zelle's graphic library can be found here
• A page with color names supported by the graphics library.

On-Line Python books

• disocovermagazine.com blog. Check out the answers posted by many readers. They contain some interesting links that you may find useful!

Python keywords

The list of all the reserved words of the Python language

and del for is raise assert elif from lambda return break else global not try class except if or while continue exec import pass yield def finally in print.

Python Programs in Textbook

• All the programs of Zelle's Python textbook

Misc

• If you decide to work in pairs for the lab, you need to follow the protocol for 'pair programming' as discussed in this article.

• Video talks on Python:
  • Guido van Rossum, and Python 3000

• • a video of digital horses: what we can do with lists of objects!