Session Abstract:
New to web development, or trying to get started? Have you taken a PHP course, but are having trouble understanding how to build complete applications for the web? Or maybe you're a manager trying to get an understanding of how web applications work at a high level. This presentation will provide an overview of how browser-based database applications work, with an iSeries audience in mind. It will demonstrate the client-side languages - HTML, CSS and JavaScript - and show how PHP scripts running on a server can dynamically build web pages including content from an iSeries database. We will discuss the HTTP protocol and how web servers work with HTML and PHP, look at some common formatting techniques in HTML and CSS, demonstrate how HTML forms interact with PHP scripts, and show what JavaScript is and how it makes the browser more functional. With these basics concepts in mind, you should be able to make better decisions about how to sort through the many options available for web-enabling your legacy databases. This presentation is for beginner to novice web programmers, or those who would like to understand the technologies and languages involved in a typical web application.


Learning Objectives:
 

• Provide an overview of how browser-based database applications work, with an iSeries audience in mind.
• Help RPG programmers and managers, with little or no web development experience; understand the major concepts and technologies involved in building web applications.
• Provide demos and code examples of the major languages involved in typical web applications: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and SQL.
   

• This presentation is for beginner to novice web programmers, or those who would like to understand the technologies and languages involved in a typical web application.
• RPG programmers interested in starting out with web development.
• Managers who would like to understand the major concepts and languages involved in developing web applications on iSeries.

John Valance has worked on the IBM midrange platform since 1983 and on web development since 1998. As a consultant and developer, John specializes in database and web application development on the IBM i platform. He is also a trainer for Zend Technologies, teaching PHP Foundations for IBM i Programmers, and is a Zend Certified Engineer. He has extensive programming experience in RPG, Java, PHP, and JavaScript, and he enjoys explaining new programming concepts to RPG programmers.

John is a frequent presenter at user groups, and has created presentations and labs on many web development topics.

John is the president and founder of Division 1 Systems, a software and services firm based in Burlington, Vermont (www.div1sys.com) Growing up in New York City, John started his career in the NY area, but moved to Vermont in 1994 to raise a family and has been there ever since. John is also an accomplished musician, playing a variety of instruments and styles. John can be reached at johnv@div1sys.com.