Getting Started

Policies Overview Communications: The course web is used for providing information and policies; Canvas is used to make announcements, communicate grades, and provide documents; Piazza is used to communicate with course staff; and GitHub is used to get workbooks and hand them in. Avoid email - use Piazza to communicate with course staff. (See Communications) Lectures and Attendance: Lecture attendance is required. Lecture materials (when available) are not meant to replace lectures. Read more…

The course web has a lot to read. Here is a suggestion as to where to start (and a recommended order you could look at them). Read more…

The prefered way to communicate with the course staff is via Piazza. If you have a question about grading, post a private message to course staff. It will be difficult to answer grading questions in person (either in class or at consulting hours). Piazza Rules If you think that your question may be of interest to other students, please post it publicly. If the course staff feels a posting is inappropriate for being public, we may make it private. Read more…

It will be really worth your time to set you computer up for class. The tools you need are discussed at Tools. 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 page setup on your machine. It will probably be different for you. If you have a Mac or are running Linux, I can’t provide as much help. Read more…

This class is meant to teach you about Computer Graphics. Computer Graphics is the study of how we make pictures with computers. The focus of the class is teaching you the key ideas of computer graphics. The class will also teach you about how to do interactive graphics programming. We will use web technologies for this. On one hand, doing interactive web programming is a means to an end: you need to program graphics in order to really learn it. Read more…

Preface: For programming in this class, you will want to have good tools. Good tools make programming easier, and let you focus on the (more fun and interesting) content. You will also need to have tools to work with GIT for source control as this will be our mechanism for handing in assignments. Some ideas on how to install the recommended tools (on Windows) are provided at Software. Overview of Programming Tools for CS559 In CS559, you will do a substantial amount of JavaScript programming. 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…

What’s on this page If you’re not already a JavaScript programmer, you may prefer to start at the end of the page Advice on learning JavaScript. A short explanation about the use of JavaScript in CS559 A short description of the rules for using JavaScript in CS559 The motivation for using JavaScript in CS559 The rationale for the rules about using JavaScript in CS559 A discussion of versions of JavaScript (which will explain what we’re using and help you use it) A discussion of tools you can use for JavaScript Advice on learning JavaScript - including books and online resources Basic Idea of JavaScript in CS559 You must do all of the programming assignments for CS559 in JavaScript. Read more…

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-requesite (since it is covered in CS400). Read more…

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. We will be using portions of some textbooks, but these are available online through the UW library. We will make selected chapters (the ones required for class) available through Canvas (Files on Canvas). Read more…