Frameworks and Architectures for the Web, MSc (Spring 2019)

Abstract

The course will provide an overview of popular Web technologies and frameworks, with a particular emphasis placed on front-end (client-side) development.

Description

The web — that which you access through a browser on your desktop machine or mobile device — remains the largest platform for end-user applications. Hundreds of millions of end-users access it every day. Under the hood, the web functions by servers sending instructions on what to render and what to compute to browsers; this process is conceptually very simple but practically very hard, reconciling conflicting demands of scalability, security, and usability.

The course aims to equip students with the skills to build websites and basic Web applications via the construction of instrumental and creative projects.

The course is divided into two parts:

Part 1 - Foundation
The first part of the course will provide an introduction to HTML, CSS and JavaScript and PHP. It will also introduce a number of design principles and practices, such as visual design basics, usability concepts, responsive Web design, and popular JavaScript libraries.

Part 2 - Frameworks
The second part of the course will introduce frameworks, which are tools that Web developers use in order to create Web applications and streamline their development practices. Frameworks are built 'on top of' HTML, CSS and JavaScript, so while they are immensely useful, they rely on a solid understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. This course will teach WordPress, Angular and React -- three very popular frameworks that are used for modern Web application development.

Formal prerequisites

None, although it is strongly recommended that students are familiar with, or have prior experience with the following: - Any programming language, either through coursework or prior industry practice. - A basic understanding of programming concepts, such as variables, debugging and basic procedural and object-oriented aspects of programming.

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Understand and apply various web programming concepts, tools and techniques as well as the principles of user interface design in developing dynamic web applications
• Develop and design a web-based user interface from existing server-side resources
• Use object-oriented features of web programming
• Create dynamic web sites that are effective in interacting with the visitors on the Web and are able to validate their input data.