CS304: Resources and References

If you find some good online resource that you think should be added to this, please let me know!

Course Information¶

• About WMDB

Infrastructure Reference¶

How to get things done in this course.

• VSC: Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio Code and catchup.
• Scott's Emacs Intro (PDF)
• Scott's Unix Intro (PDF)

Web Development¶

My favorite site for all things related to web development (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) is the Mozilla Developer site. Mozilla is the organization that implements Firefox, among other projects.

HTML and CSS¶

You'll need to know some HTML and CSS for this course. Here are some resources:

• I've learned a lot from W3 Schools over the years:
  • HTML tutorial
  • HTML tag reference
  • CSS tutorial
  • CSS reference
• The Mozilla Developer's Network (MDN) covers JavaScript better than anyone.
• The people at W3fools.com claim that W3Schools is out of date and should allow community comments and updates. They may have a point. They suggest the following resources:
  • WebPlatform.org
  • SitePoint is a pretty good reference for HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
• This site has a nice table of HTML elements with quick reminders: HTML Periodical Table.

Node.js and MongoDB¶

Express¶

• List of stuff in the request object Express API request
  • req.params is a dictionary of data from a parameterized endpoint.
  • req.query is a dictionary of data from the query string
  • req.body is a dictionary of data from the body of a POST request
  • req.cookies is a dictionary of data from the request's cookies
  • req.session is a dictionary of data from the session
• List of stuff in the response object Express API response
  • req.render(file, data) is the method to render a template with some data
  • req.send(string) sends that string as the entire response
  • req.redirect(url) responds with a redirect to that alternative URL
  • req.sendFile(path) sends the specified file to the browser.
  • req.json(data) sends data as a JSON response.

Python¶

• Python Tutorials — there are lots of tutorials at that site, so choose the one that is right for you.
• Python Database API Specification v2.0
• Writing MySQL Scripts with Python DB-API. This is a very nice tutorial.