Web Programming II

This course will be structured as an agile project to build a modern website for https://northofboston.farm/. It is designed to provide an experience similar to that of a typical web developer, building features an actual client will find useful in running their business.

An agile project typically begins by gathering requirements from the client, which you will be doing early in the semester. The work identified there will then be sequenced based on a combination of their priorities and the topics covered by this course. Once the work is completed you’ll then have an opportunity to present what you’ve done and gather feedback.

The new site will be built using SvelteKit and Postgres, hosted on Vercel. This combination of choices allow the system to be developed entirely within the hobby tier and keep the demo version free to operate. You should never be asked for a credit card, if you are, reach out to the instructor. The codebase of the existing site is written in PHP, you will not be expected to learn the language, but it may be referenced occasionally during class.

Rather than a midterm and final, you’ll be presenting what you’ve made to the client. Getting feedback from stakeholders is an important element of any project, so at the midterm we’ll be reassessing the plan and revising based on what they say.

This course uses an unconventional approach to assessing student learning called "ungrading". You will receive a final course grade, but you won't receive points-based or letter-based grades on anything you turn in to me during the semester. Instead, each week will have an assignment, upon completion you will earn a checkmark. The final grade you receive will be based on the number of checkmarks received.

Continuing the theme of an industry project, instead of submission through some homework tool, code submissions will take the form of pull requests on github. I will either provide feedback on your changes or approve the request, once approved you may merge the change and this will count as a checkmark. There will also be a few weeks which don’t involve code changes, these will still involve a pull requests defined as part of the assignment.