This document provides an introduction and overview for an "Introduction to Web Development" course taking place in January 2008. The course will cover HTML, XHTML, CSS, MySQL databases, and PHP. It will be taught over 2 lectures and 2 lab sessions per week. Assessment will include labs, a midterm exam, and a final project. The goal is to provide hands-on learning of client-side web development technologies through individual practice and problem-solving. References for further learning are also included.

1. Introduction to Web Development Course January 2008

2. Introduction to Course Lecturer: Dr. James Carswell Office: 2-004 Email: [email_address] Phone: 402-3264 Course schedule 2x1 hour lectures + 2 hour Lab Class: Tues. 6-8pm, room 4031, door code 3789X Lab: Tues. 8-10pm, room 4031 All notes/labs can be found at: www.dmc.dit.ie/dynamicweb2008/ Lab Instructor: James Lanagan Email: [email_address]

3. Module Assessment 25% weighting for the 6 labs Labs are due the day before next scheduled class (i.e. every Monday) Late labs will not be graded Labs marked out of 10 7 marks for doing what is asked + 3 marks for showing initiative! ZIP all files and name zip file: “ lastname -lab x .zip ” and email to: [email_address] 25% weighting for midterm exam ( March 11 during class & lab ) 50% weighting for final project ( due May 9 ) Grades are scaled as follows: 90-100 = 1 st = “A” 75-90 = 2.1 = “B” 60-75 = 2.2 = “C” 50-60 = pass = “D”

4. Course Aim To provide an introduction to the technologies used for client-side web development using popular markup languages such as HTML, XHTML. XHTML stands for EXtensible HyperText Markup Language XHTML is aimed to replace HTML XHTML is almost identical to HTML 4.01 XHTML is a stricter and cleaner version of HTML XHTML is HTML defined as an XML application To be able to design the appearance of a webpage independently of the content using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) . Separates content of HTML documents from the document's presentation layout. To be able to create, connect to, and query a MySQL database, and generate a webpage dynamically with PHP (hypertext pre-processor) PHP is an HTML embedded scripting (programming) language PHP is a server-side technology - everything PHP does occurs on the server Term project to produce dynamic website like: http:// www.ireland.com /

5. Learning Approach The most effective way to learn a web technology is to implement “systems” using those technologies i.e. hands-on programming Expect 2hrs of homework time (minimum) for each 1hr of class time Lecture time will be used to provide a high level introduction to a given technology, with some of its practical implementation treated in more detail. Expectation is for students to develop their skills independently of the presence of a tutor or lecturer through individual “trial-and-error” development work.

6. Module Overview HTML Advanced HTML/XHTML – tables, forms CSS more CSS MySQL Database PHP

7. References Steven M. Schafer (2005), HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Perl, and PHP Programmer's Reference , Hungry Minds Inc,U.S. Christopher Schmitt (2003), Designing CSS Web Pages, New Riders Larry Ullman (2005), PHP and Mysql for Dynamic Web Sites, Peachpitt Press Dan Cederholm (2005), Bulletproof Web Design: Improving Flexibility and Protecting Against Worst-Case Scenarios with XHTML and CSS , New Riders. Ibrahim Zeid (2004), Mastering the Internet, XHTML, and Javascript http://www.w3.org/ http://www.w3schools.com/