PHP for Website Development/UINS 290.99
Computer Information Systems
University College at Tulane

Summer 2002

General Information

Taught entirely on the Internet
Instructor: Rod Ford
Home: 859-371-7417 Office: 859-392-2040
Tuesdays 5:45 to 8:25 p.m. on the Internet
Send email to Rod Ford for details: rford@tulane.edu

Semester Calendar at http://www.tulane.edu/%7Eregistra/calend/Acal013.html

Course Description

This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to programming web-based applications using PHP and MySQL. Students will learn how to design, code and implement dynamic web sites. This course will move the student an understanding of HTML to the development of powerful web applications that can be deployed over the Internet.

Prerequisites

Students taking this course should have a working knowledge of HTML as is gained by completing the course UINS 229.

Students should have a basic understanding of programming concepts and a relational database including relationships of primary and secondary tables via keys and foreign keys

Course Objectives

For the student to:

Text and Other Resources

Atkinson, Leon. Core PHP Programming, 2nd Edition. New York: Prentice Hall, 2001. ISBN: 0-13-089398-6

Students must make arrangements to purchase this book on their own. Each student should plan to have the book for the first class session.

The book can be purchased on-line at the following sites

The following web sites are also recommended reading.

Attendance Policy

This course will be delivered through the Blackboard website at http://bb.tulane.edu. All material for the course will be posted to this site. Primarily the content will be delivered asynchronously, however, occassionally we will have Virtual Classroom sessions requiring students to participate in a live chat session.

Like traditional instructor led courses, attendance is important. Students should make every effort to attend each class session. However, I do understand that it is not always possible to make every class, students planning to miss a class session should notify the instructor prior to the class session.

Although much of the course instruction will come from the book and other available resources, there will be some material that will only be covered during class sessions. Students missing a session should make arrangements with to the course notes.

Assignments and Class Procedures

Students are expected to do their own work on all class assignments. Students who inappropriately collaborate or borrow information from sources without citing references will be judged to be in violation with the University’s policy regarding plagiarism.

Students having any question about the policy should direct questions to the instructor or consult the University documentation.

Assignments are due on the date specified in the course calendar or in class discussion when the specific assignment is made. All written assignments must be typed using a word processor and submitted electronically via email to the email address above.

Assignments will be accepted up to one week late with a 10% penalty. Work presented more than one week after the due date will not be accepted. The final project and the exam must be submitted on the due date and will not be accepted late.All assignments and projects must utilze PHP and MySQL.

The first class session will be delivered in a combination of synchronous and asynchronous material, that is students will work through some of the material on their own at a web site TBA. Subsequent classes will also involve this combination of material presentation.

Grading System

A 100-94
A- 93-90
B+ 89-87
B 86-82
B- 81-80
C+ 79-77
C 76-72
C- 71-70
D+ 69-67
D 66-62
D- 61-60
F Below 60

 

Assignment Valuation

Article Synopsis 5%
Programming Assignments 45%
Exam 15%
Client Proposal 15%
Final Project 20%

 

Assignments

Article Synopsis (5 Percent) Students should read 3 web-based articles, summarize them and discuss the value of the information for web programming. Of these three articles, at least one must be specific to PHP, the others may be about web-based programming in general or database application. Each article should be presented in one page or less.

Programming Assignments (45%, 15% each) Periodically students will be given programming assignments during the class session. Usually these assignments will relate directly to the final project; the code developed could be used in the development of the final project. There will be three of these assignments, each worth 15% of the final grade.

First Assignment will be a dynamic web site whose content is dependent on user choices.

Second Assignment will be a Login Application that will accept a user login and password restricting access to a portion of the web site.

Third Assignment will be a robust dynamic web site that delivers content from a database.

Exam (15 percent) Approximately half way through the term, there will be an exam covering all of the material discussed up to that date.

Client Proposal (15 percent) Students will be presented with a Request for Proposal from a corporation in need of a web-based application. Students will respond to the RFP as if they were going to bid on the proposal. The specific methodology for writing a proposal and its necessary components will be discussed in class.

Final Project (20 percent) Students will develop a web-based application using PHP and a MySQL database. The project will be graded on functionality, presentation, PHP syntax, database design, usability, and quality.

Course Outline


Week 1 -- Course Introduction, HTML review, How the Internet works

Week 2 -- Introduction to PHP (Chapter 1, 20), Variables/Operators/Expressions (Chapter 2)

Week 3 -- Input/Output (Chapter 7), Application Design; Requirements Gathering; Presentation Logic v. Business Logic (Chapter 21, Instructor Notes)

Week 4 -- Conditional Statements (Chapter 3)

Week 5 -- Math/Time/Date Functions (Chatpers 10,11)

Week 6 -- Database Functions (Chapter 13)

Week 7 -- Database Integration (Chapter 17), PHPMyAdmin (Instructor's Notes)

Week 8 -- Exam

Week 9 --Sorting, Searching (Chapter 15)

Week 10 -- Efficiency and Debugging (Chapter 22)

Week 11 -- Data Functions (Chapter 9)

Week 12 -- Arrays (Chapter 5)

Week 13 -- Functions and Classes (Chapters 4, 6)

Week 14 -- String Evaluation (Chapter 16)

Week 15 -- Network (Chapter 18)

Week 16 -- Review Session