Scripting for All

Creating and running small programs - including via AI prompt - are a powerful way to investigate and internalize ideas. "Personal-use" programs are typically scripts: Python, R, Matlab, etc. It is exciting that scripting-as-medium-of-exploration has grown well beyond CS: HMC's Bio 46, E72, Physics 50, Core 79, and CMC's Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences are a few examples here in Claremont. This project will (a) explore where else scripting may be useful, and will (b) design, test, and refine materials/exercises in collaboration with instructors who might consider scripting for their courses. 

An open-ended - and challenging - part of this project arises from language- and environment-choice. Although all scripting languages are theoretically equivalent in their expressive power, they are not equivalent in convenience or identity. In 2025, we will work specifically to explore how AI can help expand access to computing and computing's insights. Like IDEs, our era's AI interactions differ mostly at the margins, and this project emphasizes not these fringe-differences, but the larger set of capabilities they all encompass. Languages, IDEs, and interfaces are badges that signal ease-of-contribution and community-acceptance. We will (work to) create materials that build bridges, rather than islands, within this academic-identity space.