% python course - spring - class 1 talking points Announcements Course web page - whole schedule is there now Tonight (as all nights) 1 hour lecture/demo, then Brian and/or I circulate to discuss projects ~ 15 min/student (each student in a group) Then ~20 minute summary to the class at the end Have something prepared to discuss with us. Lecture Django-style web application is just one style: "CMS style" - server has database, a bunch of documents, ... - server creates and sends each web page, client (browser) just renders it Alternate "API style" - server does a *computation* - server just sends data, not pages - client (browser + software) creates, updates pages - UI is in the client - client software updates page with new data without reloading: "Ajax" Example API-style web application - intro by JJ - Physics simulation by JJ, JC to experiment with techniques - Server is a Python CGI program that gets data from a form, computes time series from the data, returns as JSON data - Client shows time series in a couple of different formats - bar graph of events - line graph of polarization - frame-by-frame animation - animation by switching between images Demo example - Javascript, Ajax, canvas, etc. explanation by Jon Crump Server needn't send HTML. Can also send: - JSON - SVG - WebGL - ... Browser + server can provide the user interface even for applications expected to run locally --- then optional use via the web is a bonus. Projects Suggested lab activity: start a repo on github (or your choice) with project description in README Consider: do you want to make your project public? Groups? More than one project? Wrap up List of projects, Common themes and issues?