Abstract

The World Wide Web was originally designed to provide easy access to documents through the Internet for a small community of high energy physicists. It quickly became a much more diverse and enormously larger service for virtually all sectors of society. It is now undergoing still further change. It is becoming the platform of choice for network-oriented computing, and, since more and more computing is including network components, it is likely to become the predominant platform for virtually all computing.

The purpose of this course is to learn and practice programming within the context of the WWW.

The course will include two major components. First, students will learn the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and will practice writing programs in Perl that can be accessed through CGI. This portion of the course will comprise approximately one-third of the term. Second, students will learn the Java programming language and will write programs that can be run within WWW Browsers, such as Netscape. This portion of the course will comprise approximately two-thirds of the term. The course will also include a brief overview of the WWW architecture and protocols, as needed for programming in this context.

Requirements for the course include a short CGI project and a more substantial Java project, the latter to be done by teams of 2 - 4 students. The course will also require several smaller programming exercises as well as mid-term and final exams.

As prerequisites for the course, students should have taken at least two programming courses or have equivalent programming experience. They should be familiar with the WWW, including simple HTML.

Students should be aware that this will be a demanding and time-consuming course. They should expect to spend 15-20 hours per week on it, but more or less time may be required depending on the individual's background and skills.