Q: how do you annoy a web developer?

Q: how do you annoy a web developer?

A: http://xkcd.com/1144/

(thought everybody could use a bit of comic relief during Finals Week)

Office hours during finals week

Although there is no final exam for this class, there is still Assignment #5, which is due on Friday. Here are the expanded office hours that the instructor and TA will hold during finals week:

• Monday: 1:00pm - 2:45pm (TA @ room 6804)
• Tuesday: 4:00pm - 6:00pm (Instructor @ room 6105)
• Wednesday: 1:00pm - 2:45pm (TA @ room 6804)
• Thursday: 10:00am - 4:00pm (TA @ room 6804) 
• Thursday: 3:00pm - 5:00pm (Instructor @ room 6105) 
• Friday: 10:00am - 3:00pm (TA @ room 6804) 

Sample create DB SQL for assignment #5 released

A sample create DB SQL script has been released for Assignment #5. The three tables (Users, Places, Checkins) are also available in the SHARED database.

Class canceled today

Class canceled today - instructor under the weather. Please check your email for important announcements.

jQuery material posted

The material on jQuery that was discussed during class yesterday has been posted under
Class Notes.

Course web site and php web site are now up, after CSSD-caused, preventable CS network outage

The course web site and the php web site are now up and running, after the preventable outage we experienced on midnight, November 30th, when CSSD cut off the CS network.

Extended office hours instead of recitation tomorrow

There will be no official recitation tomorrow, Friday, November 30th. Instead, the TA will have extended office hours from noon to 1:30pm and from 2pm to 5pm (i.e., will be in his office during the recitation times, in addition to his regular office hours).

Clarifications to Assignment #5

Please see the comments of this post for important clarifications to Assignment #5.

Assignment #5 posted

Assignment #5 is posted. It is due on December 14th. There will be no late submissions. There will not be a need to do a demo of it. You need to do it individually.

Clarifications to Assignment #4

Please see the comments of this post for important clarifications to Assignment #4.

Assignment #4 posted

Assignment #4, on Javascript, is now available. It is due on Friday, December 7th.

Learn AJAX in 20 minutes

AJAX stands for Asynchronous JAvascript and Xml. The main idea is that a web page can use AJAX to send requests (using Javascript) to a web server and then update parts of the page (which are specified using Javascript) according to the web server's response (which could run any type of script, e.g., PHP).

Here's the detailed sequence of steps typically found in an AJAX-enabled web page:

1. [@web browser] Some event occurs (e.g., onload or after clicking something)
2. [@web browser] A Javascript function is called 
3. [@web browser] An XMLHttpRequest Object is created
4. [@web browser] HttpRequest sent to web server
5. [@web SERVER] HttpRequest processed, typically by a PHP script
6. [@web SERVER] A response is generated (e.g., by looking up a database entry)
7. [@web SERVER] Response is sent back to browser
8. [@web browser] Process the returned data using Javascript (data could be text, html, or xml)
9. [@web browser] Update parts of web page, specified by Javascript (e.g., using elementID)

Examples:

• hello1.html -- "Hello World" example, where after clicking the "Change Content" button, a request is sent to the web server for file hello_ajax.txt which is retrieved by the browser and used to change the content of the page.
• hello2.html --  same with the previous example, but with the addition of a timestamp, computed locally by Javascript at the browser.
• hello3.html --  same with the previous example, but now instead of a static file read from the web server, the content is generated by calling hello_ajax.php (source -- run) which computes the date and picks a random pair of words to show.
• hello4.html --  same with the previous example, but now the PHP script at the web server hello_ajax_d.php (source -- run) includes a time delay of 2 seconds. This is used to demonstrate the asynchronous nature of AJAX. Notice the difference of the two timestamps displayed.
• suggest.html -- generate suggestions for first names (that have the same prefix as what has been typed), after one or more letters are typed. Relies on gethint.php 
• suggest2.html -- generate suggestions for first names (that contain these letters), after one or more letters are typed. Relies on gethint2.php

More information:

• AJAX Tutorial: www.w3schools.com/ajax/default.asp

Late submission deadline for Assignment #3 pushed

The late submission deadline for Assignment #3 has been pushed to midnight Monday, November 26, 2012, because of the problems today resulting from the migration of DNS services from our Department's server to CSSD servers.

Clarifications to Assignment #3

Please see the comments of this post for important clarifications to Assignment #3.

Third assignment posted

The third assignment (MySQL + PHP) has been posted.

Posted class notes for PHP and SQL

Class notes for PHP and SQL have been posted under http://db.cs.pitt.edu/courses/cs1520/fall2012/notes.html. Note that the in-class examples are being posted under http://bit.ly/cs1520files and photos from the whiteboard are being posted in the class google photo album.

Recitation tomorrow -- Google Image Charts

Part of the recitation on Friday (Oct 26) will be on the Google Image Charts API, which is available at https://developers.google.com/chart/image/. You are encouraged to browse through the API documentation ahead of time.

Clarifications to Assignment #2

Please see the comments of this post for important clarifications to Assignment #2.

Assignment #2 released

Second assignment has been posted. It is due on November 3rd.

PHP instructions posted

Instructions on how to use PHP for class assignments have been posted at http://db.cs.pitt.edu/courses/cs1520/fall2012/phpsetup.html