<cit597>
About This Course
24-Jul-16
CIT597
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The formal title of this course is “Programming
Languages & Techniques III”
A better title would be “Web technologies”
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Some of these technologies are specific to Java
Most of the technologies are language-independent
This course, however, uses Java
Prerequisite: CIT594 or equivalent proficiency in Java
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Translation: you had better already be a pretty good Java
programmer!
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“The network is the computer”
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The explosive growth of the Web has greatly changed
the face of computing
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Before, we wrote programs under these assumptions:
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We could use whatever language was convenient
We could write programs for the computer we happened to have
available at the moment
We could design our own data formats and database schema
We did not have to interact with the rest of the world
Today, all of these assumptions are wrong!
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Sun’s slogan, “The network is the computer,” is becoming true
Platform independence is no longer a luxury, but a necessity
There is a large and growing need for information interchange
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Platform independence
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The Internet has become extremely popular
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It connects millions of computers together
These computers run all kinds of programs, with all kinds of
operating systems
Interoperability of programs and data has become a serious
issue
There are two possible solutions:
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Microsoft’s preferred solution: Force everyone to use Windows
 Much of Microsoft’s software is designed with this end in mind
 If this happens, it will not happen quickly
Develop platform-independent languages and systems
 This is what all the other software developers (including Sun
Microsystems, the creator of Java) are working on
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Java, HTML, XML, etc.
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Java is the most platform-independent language we have
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HTML is not as feature-rich as MS Word, but it nevertheless does
a pretty good job
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We will look at ways to process XML from Java
SQL is the most widely accepted database language
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HTML is the language of the Web
Most software documentation these days is distributed in HTML, PDF
(Adobe’s Portable Document Format), or plain text
We will look at ways to create HTML from Java
XML is a platform-independent way of describing data
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This is one of the reasons for its popularity (there are many others)
We will look at ways to access SQL databases from Java
Client-server architecture is used to communicate across the Web
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We will look at creating server-side and client-side applications
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Some technologies we may cover
HTML
HTML Forms
JavaScript
XHTML & CSS
Ajax
XML
DTD
XML Schemas
RELAX NG
Java
servlets
JSP
Perl
PHP
Java
SAX
DOM
JAXP
Java
Java
JDBC
But underneath...
HTTP
TCP/IP
maybe RMI
Sockets
SQL
Apache
Tomcat
Ruby
Rails
XSL
XSLT
XPath
CSS
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Software
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Most of the necessary software will be installed in the
Moore 207 lab
I strongly encourage you to install the software on your
own computer
The basic software you need is: Java 6, Firefox 3,
EasyEclipse for LAMP, XAMPP, Tomcat, and a decent
text editor (such as jEdit or Notepad++)
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Other software will be recommended as needed
The newest versions of all this software are freely
available on the Web
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I avoid proprietary (Windows-only) software
I can’t provide a lot of help with installation
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Textbook
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The textbook is Programming the World Wide
Web, 4th Edition, by Robert W. Sebesta
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This is, unfortunately, a fairly expensive book (about $90),
but it fits this course very well
Like my course, this book is broad but shallow--that is, it
covers a great many topics, but none of them in any depth
If you are seriously broke, the Web is full of great
(and some not-so-great) tutorials and specifications
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I will provides some links to these, but...
You should be able to find this kind of information for
yourself!
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Assignments
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We will have approximately one assignment per week
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Assignments will frequently build on previous assignments
Assignments may say something like, “plus five features not
covered in class”
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This is to make sure you explore the resources available to you
Note: To make it practical to grade your assignments, it is your
responsibility to point out these extra features
Appearance and content will be factors in grading
Late policy: 5% off for each day late
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Assignments will be due by midnight
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Examinations
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We will have a short quiz each Wednesday
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Quizzes will concentrate on recently covered material, but
may include earlier material if appropriate
Quizzes may include material that was not covered in class
Your lowest quiz grade will be dropped
There will be no final exam
Assignments and examinations will be weighted as
follows:
50% assignments, 50% quizzes
Grades will be curved: 90% (or any other number) is
not necessarily an A
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Extra credit
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I will not, in general, provide specific extra credit assignments
Small amounts of extra credit will be given for helping to
improve this class; for example:
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Finding new Web sites that I think are really useful (just finding relevant
Web sites is easy; there are thousands)
Pointing out serious problems in my assignments (early enough to help
others!)
I may allow significant extra credit for a project of your own
devising, if you first get me to agree and then do a good job on it
Extra credit will be used to adjust grades upward, after they have
been calculated for the entire class
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Rules
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You may:
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You may not:
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discuss the assignments with one another
help others debug their work
use, without attribution, anything I post to the Web
share code with anyone but your assigned partner (if any)
copy another’s code, or allow your code to be copied
lend your code to someone else, or leave it lying around where
someone else may copy it
use any code from textbooks or the Web without my permission
If you think you may have accidentally broken a rule, come
and talk to me about it
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The End
“I know Karate, Kung Fu, and 47 other
dangerous words.”
--Source unknown
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