Overview of problem sets

Before designing the problem sets, we first need to outline what concepts the students need to learn in the course.

• Basic Web, HTTP, and HTML concepts (what is the web, what is a web server, what is HTTP, what is HTML & CSS, what do we mean by good HTML design, basics of the request / response cycle)
• Database backed apps 101 (why do we need database backed applications, setting up a database server, designing a small data model, designing a small 2 page web app, page flow, accepting data from the user, displaying data to the user based on the state of the database)
• Concurrency (what are the concurrency issues faced when creating a multi-user application and how to resolve them, database transactions)
• Database backed apps 102 (design a larger web application and understand page flow, usability, designing a more complex data model, and issues of scale, user managemnet, authentication)
• Security (take the app created in the previous problem set and understand the security issues faced by the application, and try to make it more secure)
• Make your own app and learn other aspects like social networking, mashups, etc.