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Project Check-in 1

Preferences ☑️

In your term project for this class, you will put together a "primer" on your assigned language as it relates to all our course concepts. In "tinker" journals you are free to experiment with whatever language that you like. But for your term project, you'll stick to an assigned language. You are not expected to master your language, but to simply be one of the students in charge of learning your language enough to explain it to others.

To make this primer, you will put into your own, clear words each of the course concepts (I'll give a list of these). And, you will illustrate each with a working example you've written in your assigned languge.

First Check-in

For our first check-in, you'll let me know your preferences, and I will assign languages in Week 3.

There are eight languages to choose from. These are broken into two groups.

  • The Compiled Languages, which are faster to run but slower to write, include C/C++, C#, Java, and Visual Basic.
  • The Interpreted Languages, which are faster to write but slower to run, include Javascript*, PHP*, Python, and Swift.
    • * Note: If you choose Javascript or PHP, it's best to have prior experience with web programming in HTML. HTML is not a part of these languages, but it comes up in all the examples you'll find online. If you don't have prior HTML experience, I likely won't assign you Javascript or PHP. In any case, w3schools.com will be your best friend.

To help me best assign these languages, answer this question: Which of these two groups do you have a preference towards, or which language in particular if you already know what language you want to use in the future?

If you would like to study a different language (one not covered in this course), then make a case for it, but it must be an imperative and object-oriented language. You may not choose the Julia programming language, which I have found a good "middle ground" between all the options and will be "my language" in my examples to you.

I'll take everyone's responses into account when assigning languages at the start of Week 3. For the sake of covering the basics, any of these will do, and you'll gain some familiarity in all of the options through the Studios and during the Peer Review. But I'll still do my best to find a fair "fit" for everyone while still distributing the languages as evenly as possible.

My goal when I assign languages will be to give you exactly what you say you prefer, but I won't assign you a language unless two other people would also be assigned that language. (Unless you made a good case for your own language.)

In later classes (eg, CIT 143 or 144) you will go more in depth into one particular language. Our goal here is just the basics, which is fairly stable across the languages you have to pick from here.

Submission

Do the check-in above in a Word/PDF and submit to Blackboard.

Grading

The entire term project process, from this first check-in all the way up to the final draft, is worth 31/100 towards your final grade.

This first check-in is only worth 1/100, so it is small, there are no wrong answers, and it will set the stage for you to do well on all those other points.