Official website of the course "Web Applications I" (code 01TXYOV) offered to students in the 1st year of the M.S. in Computer Engineering. Academic Year: 2021/2022
Short link: http://bit.ly/polito-wa1
Latest news
- 2022-02-18: Welcome to the 2022 edition of the course! Happy web to everybody!
Basic information
| Title: | Web Applications I - Course 1 (A-J) |
| Credits: | 6 CFU |
| Year: | 1st year Computer Engineering |
| Semestre: | 2nd semester (March-June) |
| Language: | English |
| Main teacher: | Fulvio Corno |
| Other teachers: | Juan Pablo Sáenz |
| Official link: | Portale della Didattica |
| GitHub Repository: | https://github.com/polito-WA1-AW1-2022 |
| Video lectures: | YouTube Playlist and Materials on Portale della didattica |
| Slack workspace: | WA1-2022-AJ |
Class Hours
| Day | Hour | Location | Type | Note |
| Tuesday | 08:30-10:00 | Room 1I | Class | |
| Tuesday | 10:00-11:30 | Room 1I | Class | |
| Thursday | 08:30-10:00 | Room 9I | Class | only March 3 |
| Thursday | 10:00-11:30 | Room 9I | Class | only March 3 |
| Thursday | 08:30-10:00 | Room 9I | Lab - Group 1 | starts on March 10 |
| Thursday | 10:00-11:30 | Room 9I | Lab - Group 2 | starts on March 10 |
Schedule
Reminder: slides are also available on GitHub (always updated to the latest version, just clone the repository and 'pull' frequently)
Resources
- Introduction to the course
- GitHub Classroom Instruction
Lecture slides
- Lecture slides are linked in the Schedule section, according to the lecture when they were first explained
- For easier download (and continuous update), all slides are also available from the course materials on GitHub
- Screencasts of the video lectures are available on the Portale della Didattica, on YouTube (playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqRTLlwsxDL8LogzYk6FrGEM20us5Wkzh)
Labs
- Lab 01 (2022-03-10): Getting Started with Node.js (Part 1)
- Lab 02 (2022-03-17): Getting Started with Node.js (Part 2)
- Lab 03 (2022-03-24): Getting started with HMTL and CSS
- Lab 04 (2022-03-31): JavaScript in the Browser
- Link for signing up a group for the BigLabs: https://forms.gle/pF31134f8owTC7Xv9
- GitHub Classroom Instructions
- BigLab 1: FilmLibrary in React
- Part 1A (2022-04-07): Getting Started with React
- Part 1B (2022-04-21): React components' state
- Part 1C (2022-04-28): Forms & Film Manipulation
- Part 1D (2022-05-05): Editing Films & React Routes
- RESULTS
- BigLab 2: Full Stack FilmLibrary
- Part 2A (2022-05-12): APIs with Express
- Part 2B (2022-05-19): APIs Integration (retrieve films from the backend)
- Part 2C (2022-05-26): Complete APIs Integration (Add, Edit, and Delete)
- Part 2D (2022-06-09): Multi-user Application with Authentication
- RESULTS
Software tools
- Node.js 16.14 (latest LTS) and npm
- Visual Studio Code
- Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox
- React Developer Tools (extension for Chrome and Firefox)
- DB Browser for SQLite
- git
On-line documentation
- Mozilla Developer Network (MDN)
- React official website
- Bootstrap 5 and React Bootstrap
- You Don't Know JS Yet (2nd edition)
- The Modern JavaScript Tutorial
Exam
Exam Assignments
- Exam 1: StudyPlan (final version, in PDF) (deadline 2022-06-22 at 23:59)
- Exam 2: SolveMyRiddle (deadline: 2022-07-14 at 23:59)
- Exam 3: Categories (deadline 2022-09-01 at 23:59)
- Exam 4: Grid Form (deadline 2022-11-06 at 23:59)
- Exam 5: Poke (deadline 2023-01-19 at 23:59)
- In case of doubts or questions, add a comment in the document linked above - the final version will be published on January 9.
- Classroom link for enrolling in the project: https://classroom.github.com/a/vOuK6OJ8
Exams from previous years
Year 2020/2021
- Exam #1: Survey (deadline: 2021-06-28 h 23:59)
- Exam #2: Meme Generator (deadline: 2021-07-12 h 23:59)
- Link for project skeleton and exam submission (on GitHub Classroom)
- Exam #3: Study Groups (deadline: 2021-09-07 h 23:59)
- Link for project skeleton and exam submission (on GitHub Classroom)
- Exam #4: Forms (extra exam session for terminal students - deadline: 2021-10-27, h 23:59)
- Link for project skeleton and exam submission (on GitHub Classroom)
- Exam #5: Crucipuzzle (deadline: 2022-01-19, h 23:59)
- Link for project skeleton and exam submission (on GitHub Classroom)
Year 2019/2020
- Exam #1: Car Rental (deadline: 28/06/2020 23:59)
- On-line document with the answers to questions raised on Slack
- Link for project skeleton and exam submission (on GitHub Classroom)
- Exam #2: Kanban (deadline: 12/07/2020 23:59)
- On-line document with the answers to questions raised on Slack
- Link for project skeleton and exam submission (on GitHub Classroom)
- Exam #3: Scheduling (deadline: 09/09/2020 23:59)
- On-line document with the answers to questions raised on Slack
- Link for project skeleton and exam submission (on GitHub Classroom)
- Exam #4: Pizza (deadline: 20/01/2021 23:59)
- On-line document with the answers to questions raised on Slack
- Link for project skeleton and exam submission (on GitHub Classroom)
Additional information:
Exam Rules
The Web Applications I (WA1)/Applicazioni Web I (AW1) exam will be as described in the following.
The exam consists of a web application project to be developed according to the specifications published 20 days in advance of each official exam date ("data appello"), plus an oral discussion of such a project. For each official date a new assignment will have to be developed.
The web application project must be developed during the 20 days by each student INDIVIDUALLY. During the oral exam, each student should be able to prove that they were able to develop the project in full autonomy by showing complete and full knowledge of every part of their submitted solution.
The final version of the project must be submitted before the deadline, according to the provided technical instructions.
If such instructions are not carefully followed, the exam will be considered failed. This includes, for instance, if the project cannot be run and tested as-is by the teacher with the required configuration.
A few days after publishing the assignment, the teachers will be available to discuss potential doubts about it (e.g., unclear or ambiguous requirements). Any interested student will be able to ask questions asynchronously. After such a clarification phase, a “final” version of the text will be published.
The submission deadline for the project is 23:59 of the day before the official exam date.
For submitting the exam, it is mandatory to enroll in the exam booking ("prenotazione esami"). The students admitted to the exam will be those that are correctly enrolled AND have turned in the project before the deadline. There will be no penalty for students who enroll but do not submit the project (they will be marked as "absent").
After the submission deadline, the teachers will evaluate the submitted solutions and provide a score for each. Depending on the number of submissions, such a process might take several days. Projects that do not meet minimum criteria will be evaluated as insufficient, with consequent exam failure, without the possibility to access the oral exam.
The evaluation criteria for the submitted project will be functional completeness, absence of unhandled errors, client-server organization, component architecture according to the React guidelines, and clarity and organization of the code.
Then, a schedule will be published for the oral exam. Each student deemed sufficient for the project part will be allocated a time slot for the discussion, that will take place in person. Some form of identification (ID card or passport, etc.) is required. The oral exam aims to ensure that each student has developed the web application by themselves and to evaluate how much the student can explain the exact behavior of the code. The source code will be opened on the teacher's computer. We will follow the same procedure if the oral exam is done remotely (for those who are duly authorized, only).
Therefore, during the oral exam, the student must be able to explain every aspect of the project. This includes, but is not limited to, the reasons behind the architectural choices for their application, how any specific fragment of code works, why it was implemented in that way, what alternatives could have been used, etc.
The evaluation criteria for the oral will be theoretical and practical knowledge of the project design, theoretical and practical knowledge of the project codebase, readiness, and clarity in the replies.
There will be 24 marks assigned to the project and 6 to the oral discussion. The minimum project score to be admitted to the oral discussion is 12. The oral is mandatory (students can refuse to take the oral, of course, and the score will be nullified). The final score after the oral exam can not be refused.
The final mark will be the sum of the scores for the submitted project, the score assigned at the end of the oral exam, and the results from the BigLabs (if submitted). Please, also notice that the score of the BigLabs will last for an entire year (i.e., until the new edition of the course starts).
Since the exam is essentially the design of an application with rather generic specifications, it is not acceptable that the submitted solutions are excessively similar among them, which would indicate that the solution has not been developed autonomously. Similarity checks will be run after the deadline. In this case, the exam will be considered failed, and the students will be notified about the situation.
RECOMMENDATIONS
During the oral exam, each student must be able to immediately find and carefully explain any part of the code in the project that implements a given feature asked by the teacher. Therefore, we recommended that the student carefully rehearse and review the code shortly before the oral exam.
As in any programming assignment, it is possible to search online for suggestions and examples about solving specific programming issues during the development phase, which can be incorporated into the final solution. However, regardless of the source, the student MUST be able to explain how the code submitted as the final solution works, regardless of the source (online examples, templates, etc.).
In the solution, it is recommended to employ all the good practices and sound programming techniques explained during the lectures. Substantial deviations from such patterns will have to be duly justified during the oral exam. If not adequately justified, they will cause a reduction of the final mark and potentially a failed exam.
Regarding the use of external libraries/templates/modules: as a general rule, the use of the techniques shown during the classes is preferred. The use of external modules and libraries for functions such as date/time handling, presentation aspects, predefined components (e.g., calendars), and similar items are allowed.
If React requires certain programming patterns, those must be followed. For example, it is NOT allowed to use JQuery or JS directly to modify DOM content within the browser. It is not allowed to use server-side technologies other than those shown in the classes: Express, with SQLite to implement DB access, and the React internal web server must be used. Also, remember that the solution MUST be submitted in a way that can be readily tested by the teacher with the commands specified in the technical instructions.