Exercises, Questions, and Projects

1. Define and describe the following terms: client, server, browser, middleware, database, database management system, entity, relationship, entity-relationship modeling, and process modeling.

2. Define and describe the following terms: HTML, Internet Explorer, Netscape, CGI, ASP, PHP, JavaScript, SQL, Access, MySQL. Your knowledge of most of these will increase as you read the rest of the book. For each term, is it the name of a product of a company, and, if so, which company? Does the term refer to a standard? Which terms refer to open source projects?

3. Go online using any browser and visit several different Web sites. Use the View command (or click the right mouse button and choose View Page Source). Describe what you see.

4. Go to an e-commerce site (you can stop before you spend any money). Make choices by clicking on links and filling out forms. Observe the Web address showing up in the address area of the toolbar. What are the filenames and what are the extensions? In some, not all cases, you will see the input data you have entered into forms as part of the address. More on this in later chapters.

5. Do a search, using Google or another search engine, on some or all of the topics: PHP, ASP, JavaScript, HTML, Open Source, MySQL, and Access. Visit some of the sites. Who or what organization supports the site? Be on the lookout for sites from product vendors, sites set up for developers to help each other out, sites from schools, and so forth.