Class 19: The Wicked Web 🕷️

Happy Halloween! In this class we will celebrate the most spooky thing of all time: web programming!

Without further ado...

Play through this spooky game I put together. It’s a test of how well you can spot errors, as that’s a large percentage of a programmer’s ability. Once you finish the game, you will unlock a special mode!

Your homework, if you don’t finish in class, is to play the game in this special mode and screenshot the results when you finish. You can play as many times as you want in this special mode and attempt to best your score! (There may be a special surprise for whoever gets the best score come Tuesday)

A note on the course so far

We have taken a deep dive into programming in the last few weeks, seemingly losing sight of the “journalism” aspect of data journalism. I want to emphasize two things: 1) you have all done an incredible job getting very deep into web programming, more than many introductory programming courses cover, and 2) this is about as deep as we are going to go in terms of raw web programming. The rest of the course will be more about applying what we’ve learned and utilizing code others have written to make stunning visuals.

I have not forgotten about final projects. Ok, maybe I did for like a few classes. But as indicated by your surveys, you all wanted some understanding of web programming. I feel like you are brilliantly equipped to understand how code on the web comes together. On Tuesday, we will discuss final projects more, but on your own it may be good to think about your topic.

The final project won’t be hard-hitting on journalism or reporting, but rather will likely take the form of a web page you put together that tells a visual story about the topic you have chosen. You will synthesize your skills in Google Sheets, Figma, and WebWarrior to get something nice out there on the world-wide web. There will be milestones to keep us all on track.