Web Development

Module I - Introduction

8 Interactive Lessons

Weekly Assignments + Fun Quizzes

If you miss a lesson, you can always view the recordings later.

• Lesson 1 -

  WELCOME TO THE WORLD WIDE WEB

  
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  The internet has connected the world on a whole new level of information sharing. The web industry is full of unusual terminology from the definitions of technology, to common design methodologies, to the difference between websites and web applications. On lesson 1, we discuss these and also the benefits, purpose, and value of building your own, whether as a working professional or for yourself.

• Lesson 2 -

  HOW DO WEBSITES WORK?

  
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  The world of web 2.0 has seen the decline of the original static informational websites, and the advent of the new, dynamic, and interactive web application. In this lesson, you will learn the structure and components of both websites and web applications.

• Lesson 3 -

  WHAT IS THE FRONT-END?

  
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  Websites and web applications are often separated into two main components: The front-end, and the back-end. The focus of this lesson is the purpose and function of the front-end and the technologies used to generate a visually appealing and responsive website.

• Lesson 4 -

  WHAT IS THE BACK-END?

  
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  Web applications cannot exist without a back-end. The ability of a web application to recognize, remember, and recall information about a user, and to provide personalized, dynamic content is what sets them apart from a standard website. This class will investigate the two main technologies used to provide this dynamic functionality, namely the back-end code, and databases.

• Lesson 5 -

  GOING LIVE

  
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  The defining feature of a website is its accessibility through the World Wide Web. Here we will discuss how you can bring your production website or web application from staging through to a live server, accessible to the entire internet via your domain name.

• Lesson 6 -

  THE FULL STACK – CHOOSE YOUR PATH

  
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  What roles exist in the web development? The industry includes many disciplines and opportunities from a broad range of ability, from both technical and design backgrounds. Professions themselves have many overlapping skillsets, so you are free to specialize in the area of your choice. Alternatively, freelancers and full-stack developers require a broader range of skillsets to handle anything that comes their way.

• Lesson 7 -

  GENERATING REVENUE

  
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  Some websites and web applications serve products, ideas, or information – whatever the value of the site, it is possible to generate an income from users of your site. The revenue stream options are discussed in this lesson depending upon the kind of website that is built.

• Lesson 8 -

  INBOUND MARKETING & SEO

  
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  With everything else in place, the final step is to ensure that users know about your website. Search Engine Optimization is a hugely important tool to direct appropriate users to your website when you hold the solution to their problem. As web developers, it is very important that we understand the impact of our website design and build to this end.

Module II - Servers & Databases Semester

• Week 1: Relational Database Management Systems

  Relational databases lie behind most of the interactive systems we use every day. This week will take an in depth look at the relational database model, how it works, and why the relational model is useful. Concepts such as primary keys, foreign keys, indexing and the database model will be covered. These topics will be covered via the phpMyAdmin user interface.

• Week 2: Advanced SQL

  The vast majority of relational databases in use today run on Structured Query Language. To this end, this week will cover the more in depth tasks available using SQL, including conditional queries with database indexing.

• Week 3: Databases & Security

  In week 3, we will take an in depth look at one of the most common malicious attack vectors in the industry today, namely SQL injection. Additionally, limiting access to SQL commands can grant additional layers of security and damage control if the application is compromised.

• Week 4: Server Setup

  Apache web server software has many configuration and control options allowing improved security and control over your web application. This week covers all the aspects from error display, to folder access control.

Module III - Front-End Development Semester

• Week 1: Bootstrap Fundamentals

  Bootstrap is a powerful, mobile-first CSS framework. This week will look at setting up Bootstrap using a Content Delivery Network. We will also look at the basics of utilizing Bootstrap to create a web page – the Bootstrap grid system and specific semantic element classes.

• Week 2: Object-Oriented JavaScript

  The object-oriented programming paradigm is the most popular programming methodology used in both software and web programming. In JavaScript, rather than building objects one by one, prototypes can be created, from which an object, with fully functioning properties and methods, can be instantiated.

• Week 3: JQuery

  JQuery is the world’s most popular JavaScript library, a set of methods contained in the JQuery object. JQuery can speed up writing JavaScript and creating dynamic functionality on the front end of your web application. JQuery can also make traditionally awkward tasks, such as event handling and AJAX, easy.

• Week 4: AJAX & Event-Handling

  Events occur all the time in a web application environment. This class teaches how events work, and how we can create our own, or even override the standard response to a trigger. AJAX on the other hand, is a powerful tool that allows us to create interesting web application responses to optimise the user experience. Both topics will be implemented with JQuery.

Module IV - PHP Development Semester

• Week 1: Object-Oriented PHP

  Our knowledge of PHP will be updated for the object-oriented programming paradigm. PHP allows for easy customization of property and method visibility which allows for encapsulation of objects. Additionally, functions and methods can be overloaded with default parameters which allows for highly adaptable methods. Finally, we will look at some useful inbuilt objects in PHP, particularly the mysqli class, which allows for easy SQL queries.

• Week 2: Cookies & PHP Sessions

  Web applications can “remember” a user’s application access rights, and history to send appropriate content to that user. In PHP, this is done with a PHP session. A session is a set of global variables that are recalled whenever a request is sent from a user with the corresponding session cookie. During this week, you will learn how to set up a simple session using these tools.

• Week 3: Error Handling

  Error handling is a powerful programming tool used to prevent unexpected effects from damaging your web application. Error handling also allows for easier debugging and expandability of code in a long-term project. PHP’s error handling techniques are covered this week with a view to helping the developer gain a stronger understanding of what can go wrong in any program.

• Week 4: PHP & Security

  As a back-end language, PHP will oversee the handling of a significant portion of the security of your web application, including data validation, stripping HTML for display in a user’s browser, and data protection using encryption.