Web Databases using ASPs

Application Software Development



 

Instructor:

Dale R. "Zai" Fox, Ph.D.

Office:

 

Office Hours:

2:00 - 3:30 PM  Tuesday and Thursday
5:30 - 6:20 PM  Tuesday
or by appointment

Phone:

 

E-mail:

zai.fox@esaighu.net

Text:

Mitchel and Atkinson, Teach Yourself Active Server Pages 3.0 in 21 Days, SAMS, 2000.

Childs, Lomax and Petrusha, VBScript in a Nutshell, O'Reilly.

Weissinger, ASP in a Nutshell, O'Reilly.

Evaluation:

Homework and one project. 

Background: The level of this course is based on the assumption that you have had a rather elementary course in Visual Basic.  It shouldn't be a major difficulty if you haven't, but it would add to the difficulty of the course.  I'm assuming everyone had CS 110 or the equivalent in VB.  This is important for the VBScript that will be driving our ASPs, interface interactions and database interactions.

The course will also be based on the assumption that you have some background in HTML or development of relatively static "information" pages for the WWW.  If you can develop your own personal web in HTML or FrontPage or some similar package you should have more than enough experience.  Though you are likely to learn much more about the meaning of HTML tags than you currently know.   If you don't currently have these capabilities it should be  relatively easy to compensate.  HTML will be the basis of our user interface development.

For the first part of the course we will be using  Microsoft Access for our databases on the server.  Then we will change to SQL for the latter part of the course.  It is unclear whether this will be ASPs with SQL Server, PHP with MySQL or JSP with MySQL.  We will talk about this during the course.

Description: This course will present a discussion of the major strategies involved in web development and their concomitant approaches to e-commerce processing.  Then we will focus on  Microsoft tools for implementing a functioning organization website.  We will spend little time developing web page interfaces in class since some background is assumed.

The first five weeks will involve some general background on ASPs that translates pretty well to JSPs and PHP.  Then we will start developing a website that can be used to register users and allow them to interact and update their information.  We will also develop the code for administering this site.

Required Software: For this course, most of the processing  will be enacted by a web server.  Thus you need to have a web browser, preferably Netscape or Internet Explorer, in order to interact with the server.  The HTML, VBScript and Access/SQL that we will use will all be executed by the server.  

Ultimately, the entire course could be developed from Notepad.  But you want some sort of textpad, notepad program to help you develop your text files.  I will use HomeSite.

You will need some way to upload your files to the web.  Some sort of FTP program is best.  I use GlobalScape's CuteFTP.  It cost about $40.   There are many others, many of which are free.  Most students end up downloading a shareware copy of WS_FTP.

 



Weekly Topic Coverage

 

Week 1

Syllabus/Policies
The QUESBMI Faculty Interest Database Management System
Creating ASP Pages

Week 2

Sending ASP Results to the Browser - The Response Class/Object
Starting a Login ASP
Homework 1

Week 3

Background on Web Based Interaction with a User
Some HTML for Developing Web Forms
Getting Information from the User - The Request Class/Object
Completing the Login ASP

Week 4

Using Server Variables
Maintaining Persistent Information with Session Variables
Maintaining Persistent Information with Cookies

Week 5

Working With Databases
Some Background on ASPs and Databases
Connecting to a Database From an ASP

Some SQL Background
Connecting and Displaying the SQL Northwind Database
SQL Select Commands and Clauses
SQL Update and Create Commands

Homework 2

Week 6

A User Registration Website
Background on the Project
Some Background on SQL Server and Stored Procedures
Creating the Tables

Adding New Users Based on SQL Stored Procedures

Week 7

Displaying the Users
Deleting Users
Modifying User Stats

Homework 3

Week 8

The Administrative Side of the User Registration Site

 

Week 9

 

Week 10  
Week 11

 

Week 12  
Week 13  

 



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