IDDS Academic Technology

Information and policy on setting up programming-oriented assignments for the Integrated Digital & Data Sciences initiative at Emmanuel College, Boston.

By Mark Sherman @marksherman
Assitant Professor of Computer Science
Director, Integrated Digital & Data Sciences (IDDS) at Emmanuel College

1101 Introduction to Programming

Platform: Codio

Codio Project Template: https://github.com/ec-idds/codio-p5js-workspace-source

This template is suitable for import directly into a Codio project. It includes configuration for in-Codio viewing of the project web page, in-editor linting provided by Codio via jshint, powerful linting via eslint. The jshint solution is configured for es6, and eslint used Mark's eslint plugin.

2201 Data Analytics

Platform: Github Classroom

Tools: R Studio

2132 Practical Machine Learning

Platform: Github Classroom

Tools: VSCode and Docker

Most assignments are done through existing web sites, and the assignment simply requires editing a README.md to answer prompts by adding text and images. These assignments do not require the Docker component, as the student does not build or run code, but the Docker environment is avaialble to provide linting, spell-checking and other features..

An upcoming assignment may use OpenAI Gym. I have an experimental environment for this on the Python Playground repository, on the openaigym branch. See Programming II, below.

Programming II & Introduction to Computer Science

Course taught in JavaScript and Python to study Imperative, Functional, and Object-Oriented styles of programming.

Platform: Github Classroom

Tools: VSCode and Docker

🌈 JavaScript/p5.js Project Template: https://github.com/ec-idds/p5js-vscode-template

🐍 Python Project Template: https://github.com/IDDS-Programming2/python-playground

• main branch: general use. Currently Python 3.10. Includes linting in VSCode and basic student instructions.
• xvnc branch: adds graphical capabilities to do GUI work.
  • Open http://localhost:6080/ to access the virtual desktop (this can be in the VSCode built-in preview or in a separate browser)
  • Click "connect" and the password is vscode
  • Run python programs by normal means. Graphical programs will appear on this desktop.
  • Right-click on the desktop to access the menu, which includes settings to change resolution.
• openaigym branch: experimental setup for using OpenAI Gym based on the xvnc branch.

General Notes

• For Github Classroom, create a Github organization per course. Re-use the organization in successive offerings of the course. This allows assignments to be easily replicated.
• Docker Desktop 4.8.2 and 4.6.1 work, however the 4.7 branch does NOT work with VSCode.
  • The interface between VSCode and Docker to start/stop/restart containers is buggy with the 4.7 version of Docker Desktop.
• At time of writing, Visual Studio Code was at Version 1.67.2 on May 31, 2022.