Net-centric Computing

Catalog description

This course introduces JavaScript and AJAX for creating Rich Internet Applications, and XML for client-server communication and Web Services. CMPSC 421 Net-centric Computing (3) This course will build on the client-server computing concepts and techniques that students learned about in prerequisite courses. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the most significant and fundamental of those technologies that are used in the computing paradigm known by a number of terms including "Net-centric", "Web 2", and "cloud" computing. On the client: We will use Dynamic XHTML, Cascading Style Sheets, JavaScript and AJAX to develop the client side of Rich Internet (or Web) Applications. For client-server-communication: We will learn how to create and validate XML documents and use these as the primary language for transmission of data from the server to the client. We will also consider how JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) can sometimes be used as a viable alternative to XML for server to client data transmission. On the server: We will learn about a variety of server-side technologies for consuming, storing, transforming, and generating content. We will use the three main types of XML parsers to consume, transform, and generate XML; we will use XSL and XPath to style and transform XML; we will use XML binding tools to convert XML to and from classes (in some high-level language); we will use Data Access Objects and object-relational mapping tools for data persistence. We will learn how servers use Web services and RSS feeds to provide XML structured content, and we will consume existing Web services and RSS feeds and produce simple Web services.