Computer Fundamentals

Computer Fundamentals
Understanding Web Development

I have taught web development in various forms over the past many years. This website contains information from courses that I taught including my notes, transcripts, insights, and other material. It has been edited to make sure that it is readable, but all of the content is derived from my own course content. Courses include CMU 95-881 Web Application Development, CMU 95-882 Enterprise Web Development, Pitt CS/CoE 1520 Computer Languages for Web Development, Pitt CS 134 Web Site Design and Development, and IUP COSC 415 Internet Architectures. Comments have been turned off, but you can feel free to contact me personally.

There is nothing special about the posts on the front page, as it is simply whatever Wordpress wants, which is typically the most recent items that I’ve uploaded.

  • Web 2.5

    When we move into Web 2.5, now everybody is on mobile devices. That changes things. We need client-side programming. We also need to adapt to different screen sizes, and we have to deal with very different networking conditions. At this point, it becomes all about the client—what the client cares about, what the browser cares…

  • Web 2.0

    With Web 2.0, we’re now talking about the social web. The key shift here is that we provide the framework, and the users provide the content. Before this, you were responsible for creating and publishing the content yourself. Now, we open that up and allow users to generate it. That shift—moving content creation from the…

  • Web 1.5

    Web 1.5 is all about keywords. Now we’ve got search engines, and we even start to see things like user feedback forms. But the search engines that care about keywords are really still tied to this Web 1.0 mindset. And again, think about Burger King—or actually, let’s switch to McDonald’s, because it’s easier. McDonald’s is…