H79.2558 Lecture 4 Credits
Instructor(s): Hubbard
Having a dynamic web site to promote, document and share projects is a necessary professional tool for more and more people. The barrier of entry for creating custom database driven web sites has traditionally been very high. However, there are a bunch of new methodologies and frameworks out there that help ease dynamic web development. This course is about using them to creating web sites from the ground up, in a quick, easy, organized and understandable way that can actually be much easier… and even (gasp!) fun. Agile Web Development favors an iterative, build and change, build and change approach. There’s a strong focus on getting a project up and running quickly and adding functionality in stages that include designing, implementing and testing. At any given stage in a project, there is a working application ripe for new features and further development. Methodologies that will be covered will include utilizing a model view controller architecture, database abstraction through object relational database mapping, templating systems to separate presentation from logic, test driven development, and using source code management (subversion). Students will begin with basic exercises leading to the development of a fully functional database driven web site serving their own needs. The class will use the Ruby on Rails language and framework. This class is for people with some experience with programming and with HTML. Some prior experience/knowledge with XHTML/CSS and a basic understanding of SQL is also recommended.
