COURSE GOALS: We seek an advanced mastery of web-development techniques that use databases to create content—HTML form objects, database connections, and server-side programming. We will use open-source MySQL as our database, structured query language (SQL), and PHP5 for programming.
TEXTS:PHP and MySQL Web Development—Fourth Edition. 2009. Luke Welling and Laura Thomson. Addison-Wesley.
Additional material will be provided from the course website and as handouts from the instructor.
FORMAT: We will have two lectures and two labs per week. Exercises will follow text examples and projects. Office hours are liberal and you are encouraged to take advantage of them.
GRADES: Programming assignments—in parallel with the text— will be graded. You are expected to attend and participate in all classes, to have completed assigned readings on time. A rubric for grading will be provided with each assignment. (Details)
PREREQUISITES: The course is for advanced students with career or program-related needs for Web applications training. Students should be familiar with Windows operating systems and with technology for static web pages, equivalent to COM271. Students who are deficient in client-side programming technique should discuss this with Dr. Logan, who will work with you to bring you fully up to speed (including possible evening lab instruction for 2-3 weeks, as needed).
SCHEDULE: Lecture, T-Th 12:30-1:20, 206 Bliss Hall; Lab, MW 12:00-1:50, 215 Quinn Hall | Office Hours
COURSE OUTLINE
PHP
Week 1 (January 23-26)
Introduction: Course goals, syllabus, and classroom procedures explained.
Review: XHTML. CSS.
Overview: PHP for server-side programming.
Forms: <form>, attributes Method and Action. <input>, <textarea>, <select>, and <option> elements. Radio buttons, checkboxes, scrolled lists, textboxes, hidden text, and submit buttons. (Examples)
Reading: Chapter 1 (p. 13-57) (notes)
Programming: 1—"Setting Up"
Week 2 (Jan. 30-Feb. 2)
PHP Overview:Embedding PHP scripts with tags <?php and ?>. Accessing form variables. Identifiers. Variables (types, values). Constants. Scope. Operators. Expressions. Functions. Conditions with if, else, and switch. Iteration with while, do, and for.
Storing and Using Data:Saving data for later use. Creating, opening, reading from, writing to, and closing files. Locking and deleting files. Files versus relational databases.
Arrays: Array indices (numerical, non-numerical). Array operators. Multidimensional arrays. Sorting. Array functions.
Reading: Chapters 2, 3 (pages 59-106) (notes 2 | (notes 3)
Programming: 2—"The Grocery List"
Week 3 (February 6-9)
Strings and Regular Expressions: Trimming, formatting, joining, and splitting strings. String comparisons. Functions for matching and replacing substrings. Using regular expressions.
Demo codes: Trimming | inquire() vs. inquire' ' |Replacing form-line-feeds with html breaks (<br />) | Quick lookup of common string functions and basic regular expression syntax.
More Demos: Repopulating a form for further editing.
Functions: Reusing code. Require ( ) and include ( ). Defining functions. Using parameters. Scope. Returning values. Calling by reference (pointer); calling by value. Recursions.
Reading: Chapters 4, 5 (pages 107-158) (notes 4 | notes 5)
Programming: Assignment 3—Error-checking and Form Feedback
Week 4 (February 13-16)
Object-oriented PHP: Concepts. Classes, attributes, and operations. Class attributes, constants, methods. Inheritance. Access modifiers. Static methods. Type hinting. Object cloning. Abstract classes. Class design. Advanced object-oriented functionality.
Exception Handling: Concepts. Try...throw...catch. Class Exception. User-defined exceptions. Other error handling methods.
MySQL
Database Design Overview: Relational database concepts and terminology. Principles and practices of database design. Normalization and de-normalization.
Reading: Chapters 6, 7, 8 (pages 159-218) (notes 6 | notes 7 | notes 8)
Programming: Assignment 4—Object Oriented Web Programming
Week 5 (February 21-23)
(Feb 20 is Presidents' Day: Classes do not meet; offices are open.)
Setting Up Databases: Creating a database. Setting users and privileges. Creating tables. Column types (=fields). Setting indices and primary keys.
Using the MySQL Database: SQL (Structured Query Language). Inserting and retrieving data from a table. Joining tables. Subqueries. Updating records. Deleting records. Modifying or deleting tables.
Reading: Chapters 9, 10 (pages 219-241) (notes 9 | notes 10).
Programming: Assignment 5—Setting up a database (using phpMyAdmin)
Week 6 (Feb. 27-Mar. 1)
Database Access From PHP Web Pages: Web server communications with database server. Opening and Closing Connections. Finding and selecting available databases. Querying and retrieving query results. PEAR, an interface.
SQL Primer: Common SQL phrases | Retrieving records from a database table | Setting up a <Select> list to choose a record to modify (MSWord doc)
Advanced MySQL Administration: The MySQL privilege system in detail. Securing the database. Speeding up queries. Optimizing. Backup and Recovery. Replication.
Advanced MySQL Programming: The Load Data Infile statement. Transactions. Foreign keys. Stored queries / procedures.
Reading: Chapters 11, 12, 13 (pages 267-323) (notes 11 | notes 12 | notes 13).
Programming: Assignment 6—Building a Front End
E-commerce and Security
Week 7 (March 5-8)
March 7 is mid-semester.
E-commerce Overview: Site design and goals. Alternative designs. Risks and Threats. Strategies.
E-commerce Security Issues: Securing your information. Threats. Policies. Tradeoffs (usability, performance, cost, security). Authentication (an example (MSWord); see also notes 23). Principles and practices of encryption. Digital signatures and certificates. Secure servers. Auditing and logging. Firewalls. Backups. Physical security.
Web Application Security: Strategies. Identifying threats. Securing code, your web server, and PHP. Securing databases. Network security.
Reading: Chapters 14, 15, 16 (pages 327-390) (notes 14 | notes 15 | notes 16).
Programming: Assignment 7—Back end
Week 8 (March 19-22)
March 12-18 is Spring Break!
Authentication with PHP and MySQL: Identifying visitors. Controlling access. Basic authentication. Apache authentication. Custom authentication.
Secure Transactions with PHP and MySQL: Providing secure transactions. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Secure storage. Storing (or not) credit card numbers. More on encryption,
Advanced PHP Techniques
Web Server File System: Uploading files. Directory functions. Interacting with server files. Executing server-side applications. Server environment variables. Image upload example. Server-file-interactions example.
Network and protocol functions: Sending and reading email. Using other websites via HTTP. Network lookup functions. FTP.
Reading: Chapters 17, 18, 19, 20 (pages 391-468) (notes 17 | notes 18 | notes 19 | notes 20).
Week 9 (March 26-29)
Date and Time: Getting date and time. Converting date formats. Date calculations. Calendar functions.
Images on the fly: Image support in PHP. Image formats. Creating images. Using automatically generated images on web pages. Using text and fonts to create images. Drawing figures and graphing data.
PHP Sessions: Session control. Cookies. Setting up a session. Session variables. Sessions and authentication.
Miscellaneous PHP features: Magic quotes. eval( ) for strings. Terminating execution with die and exit. Serializing variables and objects. Accessing the PHP environment. PHP extensions. Highlighting source code.
Reading: Chapters 21, 22, 23, 24 (pages 469-532) (notes 21 | notes 22 | notes 23 | notes 24 ).
Programming: Assignment 8—Session Control
Week 10 (April 2-5)
Managing Large Projects: Software engineering for web development. Project planning and management. Reusable and durable coding. Development environments. Documentation. Prototypes (wireframes). Optimization. Separating content, structure, style, and programming.
Debugging: Program errors (syntax, runtime, logic). Error messages and levels. Handling errors gracefully.
An example: Debugging Form Input (my blog needed fixing).
Reading: Chapters 25, 26 (pages 535-567) (notes 25 | notes 26).
Practical PHP and MySQL Projects
We will not cover all of these chapters in depth. You will pick and choose and apply some to a master project, TBA.
Week 11 (April 9-12)
Authentication and Personalization: Logging in. Authenticating users. Passwords. User preferences. Personalized content. Suggesting content based on a user profile.
A Shopping Cart: A product database. Online categorized product catalog. Shopping cart to track purchases. Checkout script for payment and shipping. Administrative interface.
Reading: Chapters 27, 28 (pages 569-650) (notes 27 | notes 28).
Week 12 (April 16-19)
Web-based Email: Connecting to POP3 and IMAP mail servers. Reading and sending mail. Replying to and forwarding mail. Deleting mail from an account.
Mailing List Manager: Subscriber database. Uploading and previewing newsletters. Setting up and managing lists.
Online Forums: Tree database for articles. Adding articles. Use of classes.
Reading: Chapters 29, 30, 31 (pages 651-770) (notes 29 | notes 30 | notes 31).
Week 13 (April 23-26)
Personalized PDF Documents:RTF and PDF certificates. PDFlib.
Web Services with XML and SOAP: XML and SOAP basics. Using XML to communicate with Amazon. Parsing XML. Caching responses. Talking to Amazon with NuSOAP.
Building Web 2.0 Applications with Ajax: XMLHTTPRequest Object. Communicating asynchronously with the server and working with the server response.
Reading: Chapters 32, 33, 34(pages 771-884) (notes 32| notes 33| notes 34).
Week 14 (April 30)
April 30 is the last day of classes.
Wrapping Up: Review and course evaluation.