

Ask HN: Syllabus for web technologies 101?  - yurylifshits

My girlfriend is enrolled in summer session at Berkeley. She signed up for "Web Architecture" class (http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i153-waim/su10/) and got the following syllabus:<p>- HTML 4 &#38; 5
 - Cascading Style Sheets
 - Internet Protocol / DNS
 - URIs / HTTP
 - Client Side Scripting
 - HTML II - Basic Web Apps
 - AJAX
 - Server Side Scripting
 - Content Types / Data Exchange
 - Browsers
 - State &#38; Local Storage
 - Privacy
 - Security<p>For me, it feels really outdated. Anyone can read documentation! Do we really need thousands of graduates who know how DNS works and do not know Rails/cloud/mobile? And many modern topics are completely missed:<p>- jQuery, other javascript frameworks
 - web frameworks: rails, djnago
 - cloud (AWS, GAE, ...)
 - mobile web: iPhone/Android/iPad
 - social apps...
 - payments
 - overview of APIs (e.g. Facebook, Google, YQL, Twilio, Paypal, Google Maps...)<p>What's your take guys? What should / shouldn't be in "Web Technologies 101"?
======
Quasimofo
Outdated? It seems pretty good to me. I would protest the teachings of API and
framework-specific topics without having some fundamentals down first. E.g.,
Teaching someone jQuery without teaching them bare-bones JavaScript first
would be a mistake IMHO.

I imagine the Basic Web Apps and AJAX topics may well use a framework you have
suggested. Client Side Scripting may touch on jQuery etc.

Once a student has an understanding of the topics in that syllabus they'll be
able to _leap_ into Rails, Django or whatever they like. That sounds much
better to me than having someone know how to use one tool only.

~~~
yurylifshits
I feel that the opposite sequence (hands down first, fundamentals later) works
better. Otherwise, you can only teach semantics. When you have zero experience
with a particular technology, how can you appreciate the "fundamental design
principles"?

~~~
Quasimofo
Perhaps I'm a little biased from studying computer science rather than
something more vocational, but as you say there are already dedicated classes
for the technologies that you suggested so I think the syllabus is still well-
suited for a "web architecture 101" course.

