CSC2003 Programme Lecture Series Description

 

Lectures
Technologies for Interactive & Distributed Computing               Andreas Pfeiffer                              3 hours
  ST_IC_L_1 Python scripting language
In the first session an introduction to Python, an object-oriented interpreted language will be given. After an introduction into the syntax of Python including data types, functions, control structures (like if, for, try) the aspect of loadable modules will be presented. An introduction into basic File I/O and object persistency in Python will be followed by an introduction to classes, inheritance and other object-oriented aspects of Python. The session will finish with an overview of ways to extend Python through extensions written in other languages such as C and C++.
  ST_IC_L2  XML and related technologies (XSLT, ...)
The second session will introduce XML, the eXtensible Markup Language, as a standard for document markup. XML defines a generic syntax to mark up data with simple, human readable tags; thus providing a flexible standard format for a variety of application domains. The session will introduce the fundamental entities of XML, ranging from elements and attributes, through namespaces to Document Type Definitions (DTDs) and the definition of a valid XML document. Based on this, the session will then look into the area of styling XML documents using the eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) in it's forms of XSLT and XSL-FO. Extensions to XML like XPath, XLink and XPointer will be discussed in the context of Data-centric Documents. The session will conclude with an overview of the DOM and SAX models of representing the structure of an XML document.
  ST_IC_L2 Distributed computing technologies and protocols (SOAP, XMLRPC, Web services, ...)
Web services provide a standard means of communication among different software applications, running on a variety of platforms and/or frameworks. We will cover the definitions of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) of Web Services and give an overview of their architecture. We show how XML is used in the context of web services and discuss two major protocols to interchange data between applications/web-services: XML-RPC and SOAP. The various roles which software agents can have in the basic architecture (Service requestor, Service provider and Discovery agency) are discussed as well as model and XML format for describing Web services like the Web Service Description Language (WSDL) and . WSDL enables one to separate the description of the abstract functionality offered by a service from concrete details of a service description such as "how" and "where" of that functionality.

 

Exercises
Technologies for Interactive & Distributed Computing               Andreas Pfeiffer                              2 hours
  ST_IC_E_1 Exercises on Technologies for Interactive & Distributed Computing
  ST_IC_E_2 

Last edited: 26-May-03 .
F.Fluckiger