Current Courses

01TXYOV - Web Applications I (course 2 - KZ)

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Official website of the course "Web Applications I" (code 01TXYOV, course 2) offered to students in the 1st year of the M.S. in Computer Engineering. Academic Year 2021/2022.

Short link to this page: https://bit.ly/polito-wa1-ii

Basic info

Course material (lectures and labs) is available in the Schedule section. Exam rules and past exams are available in the dedicated section.

Title: Web Applications I
Credits: 6 credits
Alphabetic division: Course 2 - surnames JZ-ZZ
Year: 1st year M.S. Computer Engineering
Semester 2nd semester (March-June)
Language: English
Main teacher: Luigi De Russis
Other teachers: Luca Mannella
Official link: Portale della Didattica
GitHub organization: https://github.com/polito-WA1-AW1-2022
Videolectures: YouTube Playlist and Portale della Didattica
Slack workspace: wa1-2022-kz

Class hours

See the Schedule section for detailed information.

DayHourLocationTypeNote
Tuesday 08:30-10:00 Room 9i Class  
Tuesday 10:00-11:30 Room 9i Class  
Thursday 08:30-10:00 Room 1i Lab (group I) From week 2
Thursday 10:00-11:30 Room 1i Lab (group II) From week 2

Schedule

This section hosts the schedule and learning materials of all the lectures and labs, with topics and deadlines described for each of them. Please, consider the following information as a tentatitive preview of the course organization; it is provided only for helping students organize and plan, and is subject to change without notice.

All slides, examples, exercises, and any other material used in the classroom and in the lab will be also posted in a GitHub repository. Moreover, all lectures will be video-recorded and will be available on the Portale della Didattica, as well as here and in a dedicated YouTube playlist.

DateTypeDetailsTimeVideoTeacher
    Code developed during the lectures (on GitHub)      
01/03/2022 Lecture

Introduction to the course

 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
01/03/2022 Lecture

JavaScript: introduction

 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
03/03/2022  Exercise Exercises on JavaScript (on GitHub) 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
03/03/2022 Lecture JavaScript: objects and functions 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
           
08/03/2022 Lecture JavaScript: async programming 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
08/03/2022 Exercise Exercise with functional methods 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
10/03/2022 Lab Getting started with Node.js (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luca Mannella
10/03/2022 Lab Getting started with Node.js (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luca Mannella
           
15/03/2022 Lecture JavaScript: async programming (cont'd) 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
15/03/2022 Exercise Exercise on async programming 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
17/03/2022 Lab Async programming in Node (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luigi De Russis
17/03/2022 Lab Async programming in Node (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luigi De Russis
           
  Reading Introduction to Web Architectures, HTML, and CSS Due on 21/03    
22/03/2022 Exercise

Review of Reading 1 through examples:

 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
22/03/2022 Lecture Modern CSS and Bootstrap (cont'd). Exercise. 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
24/03/2022 Lab Getting started with HMTL and CSS (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luigi De Russis
24/03/2022 Lab Getting started with HMTL and CSS (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luigi De Russis
           
29/03/2022 Lecture JavaScript in the browser 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
29/03/2022 Exercise Exercise on JavaScript in the browser 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
31/03/2022 Lab JavaScript in the browser (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luca Mannella
31/03/2022 Lab JavaScript in the browser (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luca Mannella
           
  Reading The 'this' keyword in JavaScript Due on 04/04    
05/04/2022 Lecture Introduction to React 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
05/04/2022 Lecture React: elements and JSX. Exercise. 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
07/04/2022 Lab BigLab 1A: Getting started with React (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luca Mannella
07/04/2022 Lab BigLab 1A: Getting started with React (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luca Mannella
           
12/04/2022 Lecture React: props and state. Exercise.

 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
12/04/2022 Lecture Forms in React. Exercise. 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
    Easter vacation      
21/04/2022 Lab BigLab 1B: React components' state (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luca Mannella
21/04/2022 Lab BigLab 1B: React components' state (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luca Mannella
           
26/04/2022 Exercise Exercise on Forms and State (cont'd). 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
26/04/2022 Lecture

Exercise on Forms and State (cont'd).

React Context

 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
28/04/2022 Lab BigLab 1C: Forms & Film Manipulation (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luca Mannella
28/04/2022 Lab BigLab 1C: Forms & Film Manipulation (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luca Mannella
           
  Reading Modules in JavaScript Due on 03/05    
03/05/2022 Lecture React Router 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luca Mannella
03/05/2022 Exercise Exercise on React Router 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luca Mannella
05/05/2022 Lab BigLab 1D: Editing Films & React Routes (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luca Mannella
05/05/2022 Lab BigLab 1D: Editing Films & React Routes (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luca Mannella
08/05/2022  - BigLab 1 Submission Deadline
  EoD    
10/05/2022 Lecture

Express

HTTP APIs

 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
10/05/2022 Exercise Exercise on Express 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
12/05/2022 Lab BigLab 2A: APIs with Express (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luca Mannella
12/05/2022 Lab BigLab 2A: APIs with Express (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luca Mannella
           
  Reading Client-server interaction in React Due on 16/05    
17/05/2022 Lecture Fetch. Review of the reading. 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
17/05/2022 Lecture useEffect and LifeCycle 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
19/05/2022 Lab BigLab 2B: APIs Integration - retrieve films from the backend (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luca Mannella
19/05/2022 Lab BigLab 2B: APIs Integration - retrieve films from the backend (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luca Mannella 
           
24/05/2022 Lecture LifeCycle: advanced aspects (cont'd) 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
24/05/2022 Exercise Exercise on useEffect and fetch 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
26/05/2022 Lab BigLab 2C: Complete APIs Integration - Add, Edit, and Delete (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luca Mannella
26/05/2022 Lab BigLab 2C: Complete APIs Integration - Add, Edit, and Delete (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luca Mannella
           
31/05/2022 Lecture Authentication with Passport.js 08:30-10:00 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
31/05/2022 Exercise Exercise on authentication 10:00-11:30 icons8 play button 48 Luigi De Russis
02/06/2022 - No class (holiday) - - -
           
07/06/2022 - No class - - -
09/06/2022 Lab BigLab 2D: Multi-user Application with Authentication (group I) 08:30-10:00 - Luca Mannella
09/06/2022 Lab BigLab 2D: Multi-user Application with Authentication (group II) 10:00-11:30 - Luca Mannella
12/06/2022 - BigLab 2 Submission Deadline EoD    

Video Lectures

 

Development Resources

This section lists the software applications and the libraries used in the course. In addition, it includes some additional resources that might be useful for the creation of web applications.

Software In Use

Additional libraries (e.g., React, Express, sqlite, ...) will be installed via npm.

Guides and documentation

Other Useful Resources

  • Simulate a mobile device from a desktop browser (e.g., with Chrome's Device Mode)
  • Web design:
    • Google Fonts is a great resource of easy-to-use fonts, while FontPair may help you pair them.
    • Wunderstock and Unsplash are a good starting point to find Creative Commons photos.
    • Adobe Color is an interactive web app to help you choose nice color schemes
 

Exam and BigLabs

This section contains the exam projects, BigLabs results, and related deadlines. In addition, it includes the exam rules.

BigLabs

The course includes two BigLabs, to be done in group and to submit through GitHub Classroom. Each BigLab counts up to 1 point on the final exam score (see the exam rules below).

Exam Assignments

Past exams: available on the 2020/2021 webpage of the English course.

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.