Developing an Undergraduate Distributed Development Course

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Developing an Undergraduate Distributed
Development Course

• Gregory Conti
• John M. D. Hill
• Curtis A. Carver, Jr.
• United States Military Academy
• Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer
  Science

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What We Did
IS450Distributed Application Engineering

• Built an undergraduate Distributed Development
  course to serve as a capstone for our computer
  science minor and an elective for computer
  science, electrical engineering and information
  systems engineering majors.

CS350Database Design Implementation
CS301Fundamentals of Computer Science
IT305 Theory Practice of IT Systems
IT105 Introduction to Computing
USMA Computer Science Minor (a.k.a. CS Sequence)
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Why

• Lack of WWW Programming in our traditional CS
  curriculum
• Serve as a capstone course for our CS minor
• Serve as an elective for CS, ISE and EE majors
• Student Demand
• Relevant

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Philosophy

• Design Methodology
• Client to Server
• Standards
• Open source tools
• Integrate with 120 (200) lessons
• Weave security throughout course
• Code reuse
• Art in addition to Science

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Course Structure

• Introduction / Big Picture 3 Lessons
• Web Site Design 5 Lessons
• XHTML Development (Static Website)7 Lessons
• Dynamic Website (Client Side Only) 7 Lessons
• Dynamic Website (Server Side DB) 5 Lessons
• Server Technology 6 Lessons
• Advanced Topics 5 Lessons
• Wrap-up 2 Lessons

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Assessment

• Progressive Project on topic of students choice
• Web Site Design
• Progressive Programming Assignments
• Basic
• Basic Client Side JavaScript
• Basic Client Side Server Side Database
• Final Exam

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Technologies

• Open Source
• Apache
• Perl
• HTML Kit
• MySQL
• Standards Based
• XHTML vs. HTML
• ECMA Script vs. JavaScript

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Method

• Taught in a PC lab
• Internet Access
• UNIX Access
• Hand on
• Maximize Use of Web Resources
• Text WWW How to Program (Deitel)

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Student Feedback

• No final exam (boilerplate)
• Integrate w/ online computer based training
• XHTML specific text
• High marks for Deitel
• Individual projects feeding into final group
  project(s)
• Progressive example

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Lessons Learned

• Apache server MySQL access
• vmware
• Everyone wants to help
• Post to web server from day one
• Perl requires a lot of time
• Move to PHP
• Alternative text

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Lessons Learned (cont)

• Open Source tools promote continued learning
• Engineers design technically functional websites
• JavaScript
• Too much emphasis on standards is awkward

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JavaScript
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Future Work

• XML
• UML
• PHP vs Perl
• Joint engineer artist project
• Community service
• Continue to seek out web resources

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Future Work (cont)

• Review 120 lesson sequence
• Same text
• Same technologies where possible
• Laptops and wireless
• Other technologies
• C / .Net / Java Applets
• Greater emphasis on networks

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Questions
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