CS142 Course Information

1. CS142 Course Information
Lectures
Lectures are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10:00-11:00AM via the course's Canvas Zoom
(https://canvas.stanford.edu/courses/135678/external_tools/5384) page. Lecture will be recorded and access
via the "Cloud Recordings" on Canvas Zoom
(https://canvas.stanford.edu/courses/135678/external_tools/5384). Lecture notes (lectures.html) are
available in advance and provide an outline for much of the material that will be presented in class.
Additional Materials
There is no required textbook for this class, and I am not aware of a book that is a perfect match to the
lecture material. The content of the course is de ned by the lectures. You will need additional reference
material to complete the programming projects, but this material is available on the Web. One good online
source for reference documentation on HTML, CSS, and the DOM is Mozilla Developer Network
(https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/). A comprehensive book is Dynamic HTML: The De nitive Reference,
Third Edition (http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-HTML-De nitive-Danny-
Goodman/dp/0596527403/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251152927&sr=1-1), by Danny Goodman
(O'Reilly Media), but this describes the Web as of a few years ago, so it doesn't include newer features such
as HTML5. It is freely available to Stanford students via Safari Books Online
(http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/).
The web application we build in the course's projects will use what is known as the MERN stack
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEAN_(software_bundle)#Variants). The MERN stack uses the JavaScript
language in both the browser and the server-side. The lectures will provide an introduction to JavaScript, but
more complete information can be found on the web and in some books freely available to Stanford
students through Safari Books Online (http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/).
JavaScript: The Good Parts (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596517748.do) by Douglas Crockford
(O'Reilly Media). As the book's title suggests, JavaScript is not a simple language and it is easy to hurt
yourself with some of its features. This book recommends a somewhat more safe subset of the
language to use.
JavaScript Patterns (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596806767.do) by Stoyan Stefanov (O'Reilly
Media). JavaScript programmers have discovered ways around issues in the language by doing things
in certain ways (i.e. patterns). These patterns are commonly used in JavaScript programs but some of
them use strange features of the language so it is not clear what is going on if you don't recognize
them as a common pattern.
JavaScript: The De nitive Guide, 6th Edition (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596805531.do) by
David Flanagan (O'Reilly Media). As the title suggests this is a comprehensive description of JavaScript.
Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming, 2nd Edition
(http://eloquentjavascript.net) by Marijn Haverbeke. A free e-book.
Lectures Additional Materials Prerequisites Sections Projects Late Days
Browsers Quizzes Regrades Grading Policy Students with Documented Disabilities

2. ECMAScript® 2016 Language Speci cation (https://www.ecma-
international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm) The JavaScript standard document.
The class project assignments, lectures and sections will cover what you need to know about the MERN stack
(http://mern.io/). For additional material recommend starting at the web sites of the di erent components:
MongoDB (https://www.mongodb.com/) with Mongoose.js (http://mongoosejs.com/)
ReactJS (https://reactjs.org/)
Express.js (https://expressjs.com/)
Node.js (https://nodejs.org/)
Prerequisites
The o cial prerequisites for this class on ExploreCourses are CS107 and CS108. These are listed as the
prerequisites because we expect a certain level of engineering maturity and experience. You should be
comfortable working with the command line, picking up a new language and framework, reading technical
documentation, and debugging your code. Students who have taken this class directly after 106B/X have had
to work harder and spend more time than their peers, but it's not impossible. If you have any questions
about whether you should take this class, please feel free to contact the sta .
Discussion Sections
The class will have weekly discussion sections led by the course assistants. The sections will supplement
lecture content with additional examples as well as cover material needed for the projects. Attendance is not
mandatory but we highly encourage you to attend. Like the lectures, the discussion sections will be
available via Cloud Recording.
Projects
The class will include 8 projects (projects.html), one due each week except the rst and middle week of the
quarter. Projects will be due at the same time each week, on Thursdays at 11:59 PM except for Project #7.
We encourage you to discuss the projects with other students; both giving and receiving advice will help you
to learn. It's ne to discuss overall strategy, share tips about Web technologies (useful CSS styles, library
methods, etc.), and give and receive debugging assistance. However, you must write your own code. It's
not OK to share code or write code collaboratively. The projects are intended to be simple enough for each
person to implement all of every project.
The last three projects build upon the previous project ending with a working photo sharing website.
Because of these dependencies between the projects, completing the later projects requires doing the ones
that precede it. The course sta will not provide solutions to projects but we can work with students after a
project's deadline to get the student's code working well enough to do the next assignment.
Please do not post your project solutions on the Web, either during or after the class. Students occasionally
do this because they are proud of their class work (some of the work in this class is quite good!), but this
makes it easy for future students to copy your work rather than guring things out for themselves. Posting
solutions on the Web is a Stanford Honor Code violation, since it it has the e ect of giving improper
assistance to other students.
Style points: most of the grade for each project is based on the functionality of your project (does it do what
the problem asks?). However, for each project there are also a few extra style points, which are awarded
based on the way you solve the problem, not how your solution behaves. These re ect the importance of

3. things such as proper HTML validation, clean code structure, and nice-looking interfaces. The style points to
be awarded for each project are described near the end of each project description.
Late Days
Each student is allowed a total of 3 late days, which may be spent in units of one day (24 hours) on any
projects throughout the quarter. Late days are intended to cover special situations such as illness and family
emergencies, so use them wisely. Once your late days have been used up, a penalty of 25% of the project's
total score will be assessed for each day a project is late. Projects more than four days late will not receive
any credit. Due to the dependencies between projects, students may need to complete projects even if they
did not receive credit for it. See the discussion on project dependencies above.
Note that the course projects are not weighed the same, and the latter projects will be worth more points
than the earlier ones. Since the "free" late days cannot be moved around between projects, please strongly
consider saving them for the latter projects so less/no penalties are applied towards the latter projects,
which will be more costly.
Browsers
Unfortunately, Web browsers are still not 100% identical in their behavior, so Web pages may behave
di erently on di erent browsers. For this class, the reference browser is Chrome: your project solutions
must work on Chrome, and the CAs will use Chrome to test them. Your solutions need not work on any
browser other than Chrome. You may use a di erent browser to develop your solutions if you wish (Chrome,
Firefox, and Safari all have very similar behavior), but please test on Chrome before submitting. We do not
recommend that you use Internet Explorer for development: historically, its behavior has been quite
di erent from the other browsers, so things that work on IE may not work on Chrome, and vice versa.
Quizzes
The class will have 3 timed quizzes that cover material presented in lectures but not emphazied by the
programing projects. The quizzes will be 45 minutes long and must be complete during the following time
periods:
Quiz # Available Due By
1 Mon, Apr 19, 11:30AM PDT Tue, Apr 20, 11:30AM PDT
2 Mon, May 10, 11:30AM PDT Tue, May 11, 11:30AM PDT
3 Wed, Jun 02, 11:30AM PDT Thu, Jun 03, 11:30AM PDT
Regrades
We sometimes make mistakes in grading, both on projects and quizzes, and are happy to correct these if you
point out the error. To request a regrade, add a comment on your graded submission or quiz on Canvas
with the rst word of the comment being "REGRADE". The comment box is located on the grade detail
view accessed by clicking on the project or quiz in the Grades view on Canvas
(https://canvas.stanford.edu/courses/135678/grades). Regrade requests must be submitted within 5 days
after we send out the grades for a project or quiz.

4. Regrade requests should focus on errors (i.e., something we thought was wrong but actually was right, or
you believe we misunderstood your work). There may be situations where you agree you made an error but
disagree about the number of points deducted; unfortunately, we cannot change your score in these
situations, because it would require a change in the grading rubric and thus require us to regrade all of the
projects or quizes.
Grading Policy
Grades for the class will be determined as follows:
Projects: 70%
Quizzes: 30%
Students with Documented Disabilities
Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the
request with the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC) located within the O ce of Accessible Education
(OAE). SDRC sta will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable
accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which
the request is being made. Students should contact the SDRC as soon as possible since timely notice is
needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066).
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