Programming for Information Professionals

UNC SILS, INLS 560, Spring 2025

January 14
First meeting

Our first meeting of the semester is Tuesday, January 14 at 9:30AM in Manning 001.

January 14
Introduction to the course

Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 3,600 words

📖 To read before this meeting:

  1. Vinge, Vernor. “Software Archaeology.” In A Deepness in the Sky, 183–86. New York: Tor, 1999. PDF.
    1,400 words
  2. Quéru, Jean-Baptiste. “Dizzying but Invisible Depth,” October 15, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20150417195936/https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/dfydM2Cnepe.
    1,200 words
  3. Recurse Center. “Social Rules,” n.d. https://www.recurse.com/social-rules.
    1,000 words

January 16
GitHub and GitHub Classroom

View slides Updated Thursday 1/16 8:28 AM

📖 To read before this meeting:

  1. GitHub, Inc. “Start Your Journey: Learn the Basics of GitHub.” GitHub Docs, 2024. https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/start-your-journey.

January 21
Visual Studio Code and Codespaces

View slides Updated Monday 1/20 7:09 PM

Total amount of required viewing for this meeting: 14 minutes

📺 To view before this meeting:

  1. Microsoft, “Learn Visual Studio Code in 7min.”

    View. 7 minutes
    Viewing tips

    You can follow along at https://vscode.dev.

  2. Microsoft, “Using Git with Visual Studio Code.”

    View. 7 minutes

January 21
Hello, World handed out

January 23
GitHub Copilot

Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 2,300 words

📖 To read before this meeting:

  1. GitHub, Inc. “What Is GitHub Copilot?” GitHub Docs, 2024. https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/about-github-copilot/what-is-github-copilot.
  2. Butterick, Matthew. “GitHub Copilot Investigation,” 2022. https://githubcopilotinvestigation.com.
    2,300 words

January 23
Hello, World due

January 28
Designing functions I

View slides Updated Tuesday 1/28 8:58 AM

January 28
Compound Interest handed out

January 30
Designing functions II

View slides Updated Wednesday 1/29 6:45 PM

February 4
Variables, conditionals, strings, lists I

February 4
Flag Maker handed out

February 6
Variables, conditionals, strings, lists II

February 11
Loops, dicts, sets, files, modules I

February 11
Flag Maker due

February 11
Square Roots handed out

February 13
Loops, dicts, sets, files, modules II

February 18
Testing I

February 18
Square Roots due

February 18
Testing Athleticism handed out

February 20
Testing II

February 25
Problem decomposition I

February 25
Testing Athleticism due

February 25
Authorship identification handed out

February 27
Problem decomposition II

February 28–March 7
Mid-semester 1-on-1

Sometime between Friday, February 28 and Friday, March 7, you will schedule a 15-minute mid-semester 1-on-1 evaluation with me.

We will not meet as a class on Tuesday, March 4 or Thursday, March 6.

March 4
Authorship identification due

March 7
Mid-semester 1-on-1 due

March 10–14
Spring break

Due to spring break, we will not meet Tuesday, March 11 or Thursday, March 13.

March 18
Midterm review / Debugging I

March 20
Debugging II

March 25
Handling exceptions I

March 25
Assigning Grades handed out

March 27
Handling exceptions II

April 1
No class

I will be out of town, so we will not meet today.

April 3
Going online I

April 3
Assigning Grades due

April 3
Web Crawler handed out

April 8
Going online II

April 10
Going online III

April 15
Chatting I

April 15
Web Crawler due

April 15
Chatbot handed out

April 17
Well-being Day

Due to the well-being day, we will not meet today.

April 22
Chatting II

April 24
End-of-semester review

April 24
Chatbot due

April 30–May 7
Final 1-on-1

Sometime between Wednesday, April 30 and Wednesday, May 7, you will schedule a 30-minute final 1-on-1 evaluation with me.

May 7
Final 1-on-1 due