Pages

You are not required to purchase books for this class.

All required readings will be provided online. Some of the readings are provided under academic fair use, and are only for students in the class. For this reason, they will be provided via the course Canvas page.

JavaScript does not require you to declare the types of your variables, function arguments, objects, object properties, or much of anything. However, if you give it some hints as to what you expect (as comments in your code), you can help a reader understand your program, and software tools find mistakes.

This page describes some programming practices that are recommended for CS559.

Programming assignments in CS559 will use the Javascript programming language. We will help you learn Javascript, if you aren’t already familiar with it.

We recommend using Visual Studio Code (VSCode) for doing the programming assignments in CS559. For other suggestions, see the tools page.

You will need to use some text editor for editing JavaScript programs and web pages (e.g., html and css files).

It is worth investing your time in learning to use good tools (like VSCode).

In CS559 this semester, we will use GitHub as a mechanism for distributing framework code (the starter code for assignments) as well as to have students hand in their assignments.

If you’ve never used Git, some of this might not make sense yet, since we are using Git terminology. See Learning Git and GitHub below for help in getting started.

Learning enough about Git is a requirement for the class. Technically, knowing the basics of Git is a pre-requisite (since it is covered in CS400). However, we will help you learn.

Workbooks are the main assignments for class and the required reading. Understanding them is realy important.

We will use Blackboard Collaborate Ultra (BBCU) for synchronous class meetings and consulting sessions. It is useful to take some time to set BBCU up so you can use it most effectively. Use this link to access it.

Summary:

Set it up correctly and test your audio/video beforehand
Mute yourself (and turn off video) for “whole class” parts, except when you are talking
Raise your hand if you want to speak to the whole class (breakouts can be conversational)
Use chat, status, and emoticons to communicate when you are not speaking.
The “room” for the lecture will open 15 minutes before class for pre-class conversation. There is a second “discussion” room that students can use outside of class time.

It will be really worth your time to set you computer up for class. The tools you need are discussed at Tools for 559. Here are some steps that I used to set up a new Windows laptop for working on class projects. This can give you a sense of how to get the things on the Tools for 559 page setup on your machine. It will probably be different for you. Read more…

Pre-Requisites: what you need to know before taking this class. Officially the prerequisites are: (MATH 222 or MATH 276) and (COMP SCI 367 or 400) or graduate/professional standing or declared in the Capstone Certificate in Computer Sciences for Professionals The Programming requirements We require CS400. Not necessarily because we want all the specific things they teach you in the class, but rather, we expect you to be a mature enough programmer that you can write non-trivial programs. Read more…

Books

Typed JavaScript and CS559

Javascript in CS559

Visual Studio Code (VSCode) for CS559

Tools for 559

Git and GitHub in CS559

Workbooks

Blackboard Collaborate Ultra (BBCU)

Software

Course Pre-Requisites (should you be here?)