CSci 4657 Programming Languages for Client-Server Systems: Resources.

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Required reading is marked like this. In-class examples are marked like this.

Please feel free to suggest resources that you find helpful, I will add them to the page.

General resources

• You might want to check out http://del.icio.us/emachkasova and specifically http://del.icio.us/emachkasova/WebProgramming. No guarantees about quality of sources or of my comments, but it still might be helpful.

TCP/IP and related protocols

• Overview of TCP/IP on wikipedia. You don't need to know the history or details of the layers, but you need to know what the layers are and the purpose of each one. Keywords to know: IPv4, IPv6, TCP, UDP, datagram, MTU, packet routing, connectionless protocol
• HTTP Keywords to know: HTTP, HTTP 1.0 vs HTTP 1.1, HTTP requests GET, POST, PUT, DELETE; common HTTP status codes (200, 400, 403, 404, 500), cookies, URI and URL, HTTPS.

XHTML, CSS

• XHTML validator
• CSS validator
• January 21:
  • A simple XHTML web page,
  • The same page formatted with a simple CSS style sheet, The CSS file ,
  • A similar page formatted with a background image, the CSS file
  • January 28: More CSS examples: CSS1, CSS2, and CSS3, the CSS file. Exercise, in groups: use CSS settings to achieve a certain effect, then show the result to another group and describe the effect. The other group has to implement the same effect.
• W3 Schools:XHTML, CSS, CSS3, HTML5
• An XHTML that groups elements by their functionality, Block vs inline elements (XHTML 1.0 specification)
• HTML encoding for special characters, such as < and &
• URL encoding
• CSS box model (for block elements)
• Preview your page in different browsers (puts your request in a queue and shows its screenshot in chosen browsers in a few minutes)
• Support (or lack thereof) of CSS3 and HTML5 features in different browsers
• CSS colors:
  • CSS color names and color codes
• CSS fonts:
  • W3Schools tutorial on fonts: a good starting point.
  • Common fonts on Windows, Mac and Linux and examples of common font stacks.
  • A summary of diferrent ways of setting font size.
  • Discussion of advantages and disadvantages of different ways of setting font size (relative vs absolute) Somewhat old, but still useful.
• CSS layouts (CSS positioning)
  • A step-by-step tutorial with examples for multi-column CSS formatting.
  • Another guide with several nice examples.
  • 15 CSS tricks (including very helpful suggestions about CSS positioning, with further links)
  • A sample file with different CSS positioning: css 1, css 2, css 3
• CSS examples:
  • Zen Garden: several very different examples of very involved CSS formatting for the same page. Mostly uses CSS1.
• A nice write-up on good style practices for CSS
• CSS specificity: a common reason why perfectly correct CSS settings don't have any effect.
• There are tools that "optmize" your CSS, such as CSSTidy. They enforce a consistent formatting. They may also shorten color values, remove comments (if that's what you want) and remove duplications. Please do not shorten colors and remove comments for this class.
• Lorem ipsum...: standard filler text for web page mock-ups and its history.

Javascript, DOM

• January 31: Basics of javascript - example
• JavaScript tutorial at W3 Schools
• W3 Schools DOM tutorial with JavaScript DOM objects reference (names for addressing various elements in a page) and a list of Javascript DOM examples. Also:
  • DOM document reference (properties and methods supported by document
  • Events (a list of all types of events that can be handled)
  • DOM elements reference (a list of all DOM properties supported by various elements)
  • CSS Style properties: accessing (and setting) style properties from Javascript.
• February 2: Javascript DOM examples, Forms and client-side form validation
• JavaScript regular expressions
• Test yourself on understanding javascript variable scope here
• An overview and examples of javascript closures with somewhat artificial examples.
• A very detailed write-up on javascript prototype feature, variable scope, and closures. Has several closure examples. Highly recommended.
• Douglas Crockford's example of using closures to simulate private instance variables and methods.
• Javascript "with" Statement Considered Harmful, a blog entry by Douglas Crockford.
• A talk by Douglas Crockford JavaScript: The Good Parts, the summary of the talk (you need to watch the talk first). Douglas Crockford is the author of the book JavaScript: The Good Parts (much recommended!).
• JSLint: Javascript code quality checking tool (developed by Douglas Crockford). The code quality rules used by JSLint.
• Better Coding Standards in JavaScript 5: a new standard by ECMA group, including strict mode.
• Javascript regular expressions.

Web testing

• Selenium (a suite of tools to automate web app testing):
  • We will be using Selenium IDE: a Firefox add-on.
  • Introduction to Selenium IDE
  • Selenium commands
  • Selenium uses XPath to locate elements in the page. Download XPath checker (a Firefox add-on) to find XPath locators for elements.
• February 9:Selenium test for a form example.

PHP

• PHP manual at php.net (an excellent detailed resource)
• php variable scope
• February 14: Basics of php, Object-oriented features in php
• February 16: Simple form handling (server side), form validation
• February 16: PHP cookies and sessions
• Sanitizing and filtering data

Security, SSL, cookies

• Cookie fundamentals from The Unofficial Cookie FAQ by David Whalen
• PHP security consortium, in particular:
  • Web site for the book "Essential PHP Security" by Chris Shiflett (selected chapters avaiable online)
  • Web Application Security wiki (lists common vulnerabilities, attacks, attack prevention, and best practices)
  • PHP security manual
  • Storing passwords.

AJAX and JQuery

• First ajax example: displaying information dynamically Task: change this example to case-insensitive check (but still display the suggestions with the first letter capitalized);add "auto-complete" feature when the name is unique; add a button that shows the names of logged in friends; add a "refresh" button that updates this information.
• W3 Schools tutorial (very basic AJAX introduction)
• JQuery examples
• JQuery tutorial at W3Schools:
  • JQuery selectors (similar to CSS selectors, very easy to use)
  • JQuery events
  • JQuery Effects (animate, fade, etc)
  • JQuery html (add/remove/change elements in a page)
  • JQuery ajax

Cake PHP

• cakephp.org (downloads, documentation, examples)
• Specifically,
  • Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework
  • A more detailed description of a request
  • Core components, including Security Component.
  • Core helpers (AJAX, forms, javascript, and others)
  • CakePHP Conventions (very important since following naming conventions creates a configuration).
  • Cake sessions settings
  • Tutorials and examples.
• creating associations in the model and in the controller and view (tutorial).

XML, XSLT

• XML tutorial at W3 Schools
• XPath and XSLT tutorials at W3 schools. In particular:
  • XSLT elements
  • XPath selectors
  • XSLT functions
  • XSLT function for formatting a number
  • Examples of using aggregate functions and varibales.
  • A recursive example, similar to what we did in class but with a different base case.
• In-class examples:
  The xml source file
  The simplest xslt file
  If/else in xslt
  Cascading choices
  Sorting
  Filtering on attributes
  Filtering based on xpath
  Xpath filtering using comparison
  Real xslt: using templates
  Using templates for everything
• More in-class examples (May 2nd) for the same XML source file:
  Using aggregate function sum
  Using XSLT "variables" and applying aggregate function count to an attribute
  Writing a template (a function) to find the maximum value
  Writing a recursive template (function)

SQL

• Examples from 1101
• phpMyAdmin (1101 database at the moment; login and password will be given in class)

Ruby, Rails

• Official Ruby home page
• Ruby Cheatsheet - a list of ruby keywords and notations
• First ruby example
• Writing classes in ruby.
• The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide to Riby, including some helpful classes:
  • String class
  • Enumerable module
• Ruby user guide
• Ruby on Rails - Part 3: Basic Rails podcast from a one-day intensive Rails workshop at UCBerkeley by Armando Fox and Will Sobel (RAD Lab)
• Rails naming conventions.