SYLLABUS

CSCI 490 .NET and World Wide Web Programming

(a practical and no-nonsense course)
(a one-stop course for database-driven electronic commerce system construction)

School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of North Dakota
Fall 2026

Class times: 04:40pm – 05:30pm, MoWeFr
Classroom: Harrington Hall 217
Credit hours: 3
Prerequisite: Consent of the instructor
Class pages: https://undcemcs01.und.edu/~wen.chen.hu/course/490/
 
Instructor: Wen-Chen Hu   (my teaching philosophy)
Email: wenchen@cs.und.edu
Zoom ID: https://und.zoom.us/j/2489867333
Office: Upson II 366K
Office hours: 12:30pm – 02:00pm, MoWeFr


Synchronous Class Delivery
The class lectures will be delivered synchronously via https://und.zoom.us/j/2489867333, and the Zoom video will be posted on the Blackboard afterwards. Students can watch the video clips anytime they want.

Lecture Notes
No textbook will be used. Instead award-winning, interactive, informative, and practical lecture notes (based on W3Schools and other online documents and user manuals) and detailed and precise class instructions will be provided. Collectively, the lecture notes and instructions are more like a small book, which supplies much more information than regular notes do and makes the subject studies much easier. Students will not have problem learning the subjects or taking the exams after studying them and doing programming exercises.

Evaluations
    Four programming exercises
      1. Single user     ——  10%
      2. Multiple users  ——  10%
      3. HTML            ——  10%
      4. CSS             ——  10%
    Two exams            ——  20% each
    Final exam           ——  20%

Tentative Schedule
    Weeks        1,  2  ——  Introduction
    Week             3  ——  Programming Exercise I construction
    Weeks 4, 5,  6,  7  ——  ASP.NET
    Week             8  ——  Databases and SQL
    Weeks        9, 10  ——  C# for ASP.NET
    Weeks       11, 12  ——  HTML
    Weeks       13, 14  ——  CSS
    Weeks       15, 16  ——  WWW concepts

Course Descriptions
An introduction to Microsoft .NET and World Wide Web programming for fundamental web content development. Topics including Microsoft .NET concepts, World Wide Web basics, web system structures, technology survey, client-side languages such as (X)HTML, server-side languages such as ASP.NET and database processing, web-host connection, and web content design and development. Topics include, but are not limited to: Objectives
After taking this course, students are able to achieve the following goals, but not limited to: Remark I
Definitions, terminologies, and theories will be discussed minimally in this course. Instead practical works and programming knowledge will be emphasized and enforced.

Remark II
Numerous web development tools and software have been proposed and keep emerging. The reason of using the latest ones is mainly because of hype since programming languages have no major breakthroughs since 1950s, and the application cores still require about the same level of heavy human works. Unfortunately, many IT managers do not realize this truth, but once you master one specific technology, learning another should not be difficult because all foundations are about the same.

Remark III
Web and database programming is a must for IT developers, and the only effective way to learn software development is practicing, instead of studying concepts or writing some testing programs.
No pain, no gain 😂
Remark IV
According to a study, students in programming courses learn much more by building medium/large-scale exercises instead of many small-scale test programs, which give fragmented knowledge contrary to solid understanding of the system.

Remark V
Remote work is a trend for IT workers. This course also allows you to learn how to do it by using the VPN (virtual private networks) to connect to our Linux server , and having the exercises set up at the server and be accessed from the clients.

Instructor’s Qualification
The instructor initiated a database-driven web system by using Perl and Sybase in 1997, when not many people were familiar with the web development. Ever since, numerous software and tools such as ASP.NET, LAMP, and Oracle have been used by him to build various web systems.

AI Usage Policy
Students may use AI as a coding aid for their education, but they should avoid copying and pasting entire blocks of unverified AI-generated code.

Dishonesty
Under no circumstances will acts of academic dishonesty be tolerated. Any suspected incidents of dishonesty will be promptly referred to the Assistant Dean of Students. Refer to the Code of Student Life, Appendix B: Acts of Dishonesty.

Disability
Students who need special accommodations for learning or who have special needs are invited to share these concerns or requests with the instructor as soon as possible.






      “Count your age by friends, not years.    
      Count your life by smiles, not tears.”    
      ― John Lennon