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Social Networking Web Application

Development of a social networking web application

Contact Bernd Hauck
  Helge Klimek
Students Participants of the course Web Engineering
Year 2009/2010
Context Web Engineering

Objectives

The idea of the lab for the lecture Web Engineering was to provide a single web application whose features were enhanced incrementally. During the lab the students had the chance to learn the pracitcal side of programming web applications like the commonly known web 2.0 social web site Facebook.

The project covered all the aspects of the development: starting from the setup of the database server until implementing current web 2.0 features like auto-completion. Apart from features the students ought to learn how to develop a well-structured web application.

Tasks

The application was developed in a step by step manner by two students. With every increment the application was enhanced using technologies discussed in the lecture. The following tasks had to be solved in particular:

  1. Database: Setup of the database as well as the implementation of the Java objects to access and manipulate the data.
  2. Cascading Style Sheets: Adding "Design and Style" to the web site.
  3. Servlets und Filter: Creating the first dynamic web application, implementing access control and file uploads.
  4. Java Server Pages: Lessons learned, refactoring the web application.
  5. JavaScript und AJAX: Integrating twitter status, improving the web sites usability and adding asynchronous features to the web site to make it more responsive.
  6. RSS: Once the site is complete, add a feature to allow syndication.