Course Description
E-commerce system is a special type of enterprise application running on top of web/http. E-commerce systems are different from desktop systems, embedded systems and other enterprise systems like accounting or payroll system. Any request sends into an E-commerce system goes through the public Internet, which slows the responsiveness and increases the possible security threat. A typical e-commerce system is expected to handle large number of requests coming from every corner of the Internet and sent by all sorts of client systems. This further complicates the design of such system.
This course aims at providing both conceptual understanding and hand-on experiences for the technologies used in building e-commerce system. We will examine how data/messages are communicated between client and server; how to improve the responsiveness using rich client technology; how to build a secure web application which is vital for E-commerce systems.
At the end of this course, students are expected to have a clear understanding of the structure and technologies of e-commerce systems. Students are also expected to be able to read and modify simple web application code. Internet and Web technologies are surrounded by a cloud of mysterious acronyms like RSS, SOAP, REST, XML, XHTML, CSS, ATOM, JSON, DOM, AJAX, PHP, ASP, JSP, JSF, RoR and so on. As a side effect , students are expected to be able to map those acronyms to a particular technology slot.
Learning Outcome
- Understand the structures of web/http and the distinctive features and requirements of e-commerce systems.
- Understand the difference between thin client and rich client
- Grasp the core technologies support rich Internet client.
- Understand the MVC architecture of Web application
- Understand RESTful Web Services architecture
- Understand various securitiy issues in web application
- obtain development skills with regard to a core set of technologies including Ajax and Ruby on Rails.
Assessment packages
- Quizzes (50%)
- Final Exam (50%)
Course staff
- Lecturer: Dr. Ying Zhou (ZHOUY at IT dot USYD dot EDU dot AU)