Traditional web applications generally suffer from poor user interface response times because all interactions involve a server transaction and a page reload. AJAX techniques (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) have led to a mini-renaissance of web applications (such as gmail and flickr) because AJAX offers a way to eliminate many server transactions. This is done by asynchronously downloading information from the server in XML format and handling the interface actions on the client side with JavaScript. In this course students will learn about XML and its use in web applications, including DTDs and schemas, parsing and validating, XPath, XLink, and XPointer, XSLT transformations, and common applications of XML such as OpenDocument, FO, RDF, and RSS. Students will then learn AJAX programming techniques and work in groups on AJAX web applications. Evaluation will be based on written homework, smaller programming assignments, and a larger group programming project.
Bstore (Nathan Beach, Brian Vanderwal, Arie Den Breems, Dennis Hengeveld)
The Calvin Ajax Blog (David Vande Bunte, Brett Pennings, Jonathan Lovelace, Ryan Holt)
DormFlix (Seth Janes, Brett Vanderveen, Brian Ryckbost, E.J. Dyksen)
The Front Porch (Dave Hanson, Matt Riemersma, Raf Siebenschein, Brian Kaemingk)
Ta Done: To-do list (Daniel Brown, Allison Thompson, Nathanael Kaseman, Kenneth Todd, Andrew Egeler.)
Professor:
Harry Plantinga
299 North Hall
x66860
Meeting Place: Start out each afternoon in SB 382
Textbook: AJAX: Creating Web Pages with Asynchronous JavaScript and XML by Edmond Woychowsky, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-227267-0
Course work
Grading: Pass/Fail
Participants and projects: Course server