A production-intensive, discussion-based course in accessing and manipulating data APIs with JavaScript and Node.js. Taught by Professor Karl Stolley, Summer 2018.
Each week, we will all work together through a problem related to the week’s readings and your progress on the two larger projects. You should post to Basecamp as you are working on the problems. Part of their purpose is to help everyone in the class learn to work together and compare different approaches to solving challenging problems.
You will create an Express.js-backed application on top of Node.js that consumes API data and presents the data in a useful format tied to some specific user task or information need. Your display will be a single HTML page, styled with CSS and progressively enhanced with JavaScript as necessary in the browser. Think of your display as something like an information dashboard. Your display will contain limited user interaction, other than perhaps modifying views of data. But no interaction should trigger the fetching of additional data (that will be the focus of Project Two).
package.json file to track additional
dependencies and version your project
<figure> and
<figcaption> tags
screen.css file should be the Eric Meyer reset
CSS styles
em, rem, vm,
%) in your CSS; no px, pt, or other absolute
units are permitted in your CSS
on- or other deprecated event attributes in your HTML.
Handle all events via event listeners in your JavaScript. The only element of your HTML
that should contain any references to JavaScript should be a <script>
element that loads your JavaScript file, and possibly also your DOM-manipulation
framework. In other words, keep your JavaScript unobtrusive to progressively enhance
your HTML.
You will build upon and improve your work from Project One and create a more interactive system for navigating API data, including additional data requests based on user input, if necessary. However, if your API requests already include additional data, you might only need to manipulate what’s already there. Let your API and your user interactions be your guide.
As you’ll see below, the requirements for this project are almost identitical to Project One.
Fetch API or another means (AJAX) for handling user
requests for additional data, when appropriate
package.json file to track additional
dependencies and version your project
.gitignore file that prevents inclusion of the
node_modules in your repository
process.env object in Node.js to keep API
keys and other sensitive information out of your repository
<figure> and
<figcaption> tags
screen.css file should be the Eric Meyer reset
CSS styles
em, rem, vm,
%) in your CSS; no px, pt, or other absolute
units are permitted in your CSS
on- or other deprecated event attributes in your HTML.
Handle all events via event listeners in your JavaScript. The only element of your HTML
that should contain any references to JavaScript should be a <script>
element that loads your JavaScript file, and possibly also your DOM-manipulation
framework. In other words, keep your JavaScript unobtrusive to progressively enhance
your HTML.
For students enrolled in the 569 section: The instructor will assign you a common data-serialization format, such as JSON, XML, or CSV. You will then create a GitHub Gist containing a brief description of the format, including its history and development, as well as links to documentation of the format, examples of the format you find on the internet, and Node.js core libraries and third-party modules for parsing or delivering the format. You will post the link to your Gist on Basecamp as a reference for all students in the class. The instructor will also link to your Gist from the Links page on the course site.