1. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - ItalyAcademic days 2004 Teaching Web Development on.NET Framework Andrea Molinari University of Trento Department of Computer and Management Sciences Trento - Italy

2. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy2Academic Days 2004 Introduction: my experience teaching academic ICT courses since 1989 with MS Technologies programming introduction to programming database programming web programming HCI (What? not Flash???) operating systems (What? not Unix/Linux???)

3. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy3Academic Days 2004 The facts teaching using.NET since 2001 two different Universities two different Faculties Computer Science Engineering

4. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy4Academic Days 2004 The facts Current courses Internet technologies/ Internet programming Information systems Advanced Information systems Human Computer Interaction

5. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy5Academic Days 2004 Courses structure 36/48 face-to-face hours 18/24 lab hours (tutorship) two/three months period

6. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy6Academic Days 2004 Topics Programming Internet programming Advanced Database programming

7. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy7Academic Days 2004 Topics Human Computer Interaction: Labs in Vb.net Internet programming ASP.NET with VB.NET Database programming ASP.NET with VB.NET as test-bed, Sql-server+ T- SQL

8. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy8Academic Days 2004 ASP.NET: reasons of a choice My choices developing research prototypes with ASP previous experience with VB some far-sighted persons asked me to do…. technically, I consider it a very good choice strategically (for students), I consider it a very good choice

9. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy9Academic Days 2004 VB(.NET): reasons of a choice Academic reasons: facilitate event-driven and OO programming learning ensure quick programming experience (Windows) vehicle for declarative programming (ex.SQL)

10. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy10Academic Days 2004 VB(.NET): reasons of a choice Practical reasons students/companies want to build Win apps VB.NET and SQL open internship / job doors stage requirements it’s intuitive and easy

11. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy11Academic Days 2004 VB(.NET): the reasons of a choice My position Bad reputation among some operators, once correct, now absolutely unjustified and groundless…. Relatively simple but powerful, now fully OO ideal for building apps/interfaces quickly most widespread language for windows settings …continue….

12. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy12Academic Days 2004 VB(.NET): the reasons of a choice …… New programming environment: framework.NET and VS Same language in different settings: office, macros, various prgms, calculators, …… Used for Internet programming in.NET

13. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy13Academic Days 2004 VB.NET: the problems students’ background Only Java/C++ VB6 a brand new language: fantasy-basic many linux-fans perplexity misconception hate: “no contamination” strategy login to Tarantella, or accessing to a linux server with VMWare®, and W2k running all the stuff

14. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy14Academic Days 2004 The unofficial reasons What? Still VB? Yes, yes and yes “cross-environment” office, Windows, Web, Mobile easy different to Java not taught in academic settings 25 years with Basic, from HP3000 to PDA…

15. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy15Academic Days 2004 Why not C# ???? too similar to Java In that faculties, all students attend billions of courses in Java a sort of latent request from students: …..please, let’s see something different…. No “knowledge reuse”? No, I was surprised..

16. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy16Academic Days 2004 Teaching Web development with.NET: the syllabus Introduction to C/S programming VB.NET VS / web matrix HTML ASP.NET built-in objects web controls and user controls Data bound web controls ASP.NET & Database Multi-tier programming file management, cache, security

17. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy17Academic Days 2004 What’s left out deeper Framework knowledge C/S theory OO cache security XML web server management optimization DB programming multi-tier application

18. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy18Academic Days 2004 Teaching Web development Many different areas needed solid HTML and CSS knowledge VB.NET: basics language structure, statements, variables etc. ASP.NET pages, objects, controls etc. DBMS mngt, SQL, connection strings, SP, triggers etc. IIS installation, configuration, management, T&T …. The O.S. security, user rights, performance monitor etc.

19. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy19Academic Days 2004 VB.NET inside ASP.NET used from console applications to multi-tier web applications console windows web no “visual” part, only language syntax and procedural statements

20. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy20Academic Days 2004 VB.NET the method all the materials is available online approx. 1 “theoretical” slide, 3 commented exercises for each one many examples internet, books, personal slides with code chunks animations live sessions webcast

21. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy21Academic Days 2004 VB.NET The method (labs) the exercise is presented and explained study groups, normally no one is working alone 2/3 students students try to find a solution, an outline is given the solution is finally presented by me/tutor and commented

22. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy22Academic Days 2004 NON-objectives Full knowledge of the framework: impossible to achieve in 18/24 hours!!!! The involvement of students is indispensable: self-training books using study groups to increase learning take full advantage of VS: I prefer they work hard on coding, at least at the initial stage

23. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy23Academic Days 2004 Final exam a project agreed with me (highly recommended…) a fully-functional website no care about the graphics and special efx robust use of VB.NET full usage of the best tools of ASP.NET a DB of min. 6 tables as a back-end

24. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy24Academic Days 2004 The difficulties: the student’s side …other than the usual difficulties in teaching programming…. web programming: many concepts The framework the vastity the similarity with some J2EE concepts short time the parallelism with other courses covering similar topics

25. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy25Academic Days 2004 The difficulties–2: the student’s side the most “hated” topics 1. too many objects and properties 2. too many ways to do the same thing 3. ADO.NET Datasets 4. DB connection 5. setting up MS server (“right-click admin”) 6. installing the framework 7. HTML, CSS and the “browsers’ war”

26. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy26Academic Days 2004 The difficulties–3: the student’s side the most “hated” topics (and solutions) 1. too many objects and properties  VS 2. many ways to do the same thing  come to lesson … 3. ADO.NET Datasets  take a good book 4. DB connection  MDB file with physical path 5. setting up MS server  “I told you to study W2K/W2k3 as an OS!!!” 6. installing the framework  take the PC with you 7. setting up IIS  take the PC with you

27. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy27Academic Days 2004 The difficulties–4: the student’s side … but there is one final solution: TAKE A GOOD BOOK AND START FROM THE FIRST PAGE!!!

28. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy28Academic Days 2004 The difficulties-5: around me…. many resistencies in setting up a classroom with MS server environments Linux is dominant in academy and in the technicians preferences lab technicians ignore many server-side aspects of MS technologies “Trustworthy computing” is far away….. at the best, they use MS for printing and sharing files the result: NO services, NO IIS, NO SqlServer

29. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy29Academic Days 2004 The difficulties-6: around me…. It should be…. a distributed development environment …but it is… a “127.0.0.1” environment Problems (from my point of view): no “real world” feeling about publishing versioning control development team management

30. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy30Academic Days 2004 The difficulties-7: around me…. It should be…. VS 2003 IIS SQL Server …but it is… web matrix and (sometimes) its web server Access notepad Virtual machines, emulators etc.

31. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy31Academic Days 2004 The difficulties-8: the market…. some facts kill the motivation in promoting MS technologies in academy few ISP available for deploying ASP.NET web sites and related technologies available for using top-class back-end DBMSs MS technologies are changing too fast respect to software life-cycle openness of MS products, prices, F/OSS… something is changing…

32. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy32Academic Days 2004 Final comments: my experience -1 some influent roles inside academy don’t approve the use of MS technologies as part of a learning process am I particularly unlucky? Though officially the teacher has the freedom to choose…. … let’s say…..”no stimulation” in using MS technologies in case of competition for contract positions, a “non-MS” teacher could be preferred

33. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy33Academic Days 2004 Final comments: my experience -2 sometimes I hide the usage of MS techs appreciated by companies in the end, appreciated by students not so appreciated for internal projects academic projects EU projects public bodies projects/collaboration

34. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy34Academic Days 2004 Final comments: my experience -3 Official motivations for this “ostracism”: too expensive not F/OSS I don’t know it not trendy too “market-oriented”

35. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy35Academic Days 2004 Final comments Motivation: too expensive not completely exact: IIS+ASP.NET: free Web Matrix: free MSDNAA for the OS in case of large usage of this formula (many colleagues said: “really all free?”), is MS still available?

36. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy36Academic Days 2004 Final comments Motivations: not F/OSS true, current initiatives are too “blended”

37. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy37Academic Days 2004 Final comments Motivations: I don’t know it REALLY true MS technologies largely used in high-schools, not used in academy Unix academic background is still prevalent

38. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy38Academic Days 2004 Final comments Motivations: not trendy in academy, teaching MS technology is not a good visiting card nowadays, the free/opensource movement is largely dominating didactic activities I totally disagree with this vision University is probably the last place where people will have the chance to see different technologies and approaches

39. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy39Academic Days 2004 Final comments Motivations: “it’s too market oriented” “I don’t want to explain general concepts with a proprietary technology“ partly true, this is a problem for MS that must be solved …though I was never embarassed by “market technologies”….

40. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy40Academic Days 2004 Results pros…. many enthusiastic students many of them developed the final project as a real- world website for someone companies appreciate ASP.NET skilled people our research group have skilled people for research prototypes

41. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy41Academic Days 2004 Results …and cons no coordination with other courses too little time for all the topics few resourses really tough for those who don’t like prgm

42. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy42Academic Days 2004 Results Students pass the exam (95.4%) I don’t remembet a student taking the exam at the first session the content of the project is larger than expected but… …the additions are not “optimized” no one asks for additional books or sources some attempts to “copy&paste” from Internet

43. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy43Academic Days 2004 Results What do they appreciate of ASP.NET? 1. fastness in creating a full-branded website 2. simplicity in doing that 3. potential for their future job 4. the development environment 5. the integration with the OS 6. ASP.NET 2.0….

44. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy44Academic Days 2004 Results What do they NOT appreciate of ASP.NET? 1..NET vastity 2. doing same thing in different ways 3. being a MS technology 4. ASP.NET 2.0

45. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy45Academic Days 2004 Results What do I NOT appreciate of ASP.NET? 1..NET vastity 2. the difference between programming and design 3. some things corrected in ASP.NET 2.0

46. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy46Academic Days 2004 Results other aspects better to teach to non-MS students rather than old VB6/ASP programmers Deep knowledge of HTML, Javascript, CSS necessity at least of one preceeding module one following module

47. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy47Academic Days 2004 My wishing well… less ostracism in academic settings more time: the topic is vast as the tools are more coordination with other modules programming, operating systems, database more MS o.s. concepts, on the server side leaving the “desktop” approach to MS services, security, authentication, performance monitoring…. XML….

48. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy48Academic Days 2004 My wishing well… As we are forging future MS customers, from MS as a whole, I would expect more investments more care more support … to academic teaching problems more partnerships on the teacher’s side you don’t solve the issue just with MSDNAA TechEd? probably, a different marketing strategy on Academic settings

49. Andrea Molinari - University of Trento - Italy49Academic Days 2004 Thank you for your attention, waiting for comments….