Spring 2010: http://prof.crouse.cc/web_as_platform/spring_2010

Google’s announcement of the Chrome OS provided a definite time line for what has been on the horizon for some time: web-based personal computing. With this radical change in the way we think about personal computing, languages once thought of as too rudimentary for “serious” application programming (namely JavaScript) are becoming more important. This class will look at the nuts and bolts of Web Application Development, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP, as well as the implications of viewing the web as a platform. We will look at the current landscape of web apps and services, including Mechanical Turk, Amazon S3, Facebook, and Google Maps, and learn to use these services in our own work. We will cover many popular libraries, such as JQuery, Blueprint CSS, and the Google Web Toolkit and App Engine. This class is for students who wish to learn the basics of how to make functional web applications. The class will start with a 2 week HTML/CSS intensive review, so students with no HTML/CSS experience should expect some extra work.

Spring 2010 site: http://prof.crouse.cc/code_for_art/spring_2010

Code for Art is an introduction to C and C++ programming using the Macintosh, UNIX or DOS operating system. Students will learn how to compile basic executable files and be given a strong grounding in applications development. The class will also cover basic IDE and development environment issues as well as platform specific development concerns.

This class isn’t called Programming 101 because rather than linked lists and assembly language, we are interested in image, audio, and video manipulation. Rather than utility, we are interested in experience. This is how your work will be evaluated.

The class has 3 parts.

Part 1

Intensive tutorial in c++. For some of you this might be boring, but it is necessary so that we are all in the same page. At the end of that, there will be an open book, in-class code writing test.

Part 2

The second part is all about brainstorming and generating rapid prototypes. Each week there will be a presentation about a different coding topic, such as working with images, video, audio, computer vision, etc. There will be a critique at the end of this part where you will present your ideas (published in the prescribed way, video+ source code) and proofs-of-concepts and the class will help you decide which project to pursue in the next section of the class.

For this part, you will need Programming Interactivity: A Designer’s Guide to Processing, Arduino, and Openframeworks.

Part 3

The last part is about presentation, performance, documentation, and sharing. You will take one of your rapid prototypes and polish it.