Course number: CSPP51038
Meeting times: Mondays starting June 22, 2009 5:30-8:20pm
Register for listhost
Professor: Andrew Siegel (asiegel@cs.uchicago.edu)
TA: Sonjia Waxmonsky (wax@cs.uchicago.edu)
Course description: This course focuses primarily on using XML to greatly simplify application design. Examples in the course will be driven by real-world programming tasks that aim to remove inefficiencies in non-automated processes. These examples will set the background and context for studying XML in depth. In the first part of course the XML standard is studied and assignments are geared toward learning how to best design sophisticated schema to describe complex data. The second part of the course will focus on using these XML schema to simplify the messaging layer of distributed applications. Finally, higher level XML-based programming strategies will be applied to more easily solve more complex problems.
Course Format: Instructor lecture with interspersed hands-on assignments, an end of class quiz, and signficant student participation. Please bring several sheets of paper and something to write with for quiz and assignments (a laptop is helpful but not necessary).
Pre-requisites: Strong programming skills preferably in Java, but C#, Python, Perl, or C++ will be ok also.
Grading:
Getting Help: The course listhost is the best place to get help quickly. We will monitor it as frequently as possible and often be able to answer immediately. Students are encouraged to help their peers on the listhost by contributing when it is convenient.
Required tools:
Text editor and compiler for your favorite language
XSLT processor (many good free ones)
Server side programming model
Web Links:
There are too many reasonably good links for me to keep this up alone. If you find something that is useful for any of the topics below, send link to me and I
will add to this list for the benefit of others.
Syllabus:
| Date | Topic | Reference Material | Readings | Homework | in-class | Quiz |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 22 | Warmup: Introduction to XML; XML Schema Part I | examples | -- | exercises | ||
| June 29 | XML Schema Part II: types, namespaces, imports, keys, etc. | examples | homework1 | exercises | ||
| July 6 | XML Schema in depth; overview of RelaxNG, DTD, ... | examples | exercises | |||
| July 13 | Finish Schema -- mid-term quiz | |||||
| July 20 | Intro to XSLT | examples | XSLT standard | homework2 | exercises | quiz1 |
| July 27 | XSLT in depth | examples | XPath standard | |||
| Aug 3 | XML Parsing Models, auto language bindings using JAXB, etc. | examples | homework3 | exercises | ||
| August 10 | SOAP, RPC mechanisms | examples | Argument against SOAP encoding | exercises | quiz2 | |
| Aug 17 | WSDL | homework4 | exercises |