Learning Web Development the Vanilla Way

This book covers every aspect of a web application, both on the web browser side (front end) and on the web server side (back end). The fundamental concepts are first presented from a theoretical point of view and then illustrated with source code examples.

The code we provide is written in Vanilla style, meaning that it does not depend on any development framework (except for the database connection, which requires a specific driver). The goal of the Vanilla approach is to gain a solid understanding of the deep mechanisms at the heart of every web application.

We present the fundamental concepts of web applications and illustrate them through a concrete implementation: building an application for managing images.

The image wall application we build in this book.

This book is intended for people who want to learn how to develop web applications, for developers who want a better understanding of the fundamental concepts of the web, for teachers who want to prepare a course on this subject (from high school to university level), for students who want an in-depth knowledge of the web, and finally for anyone who simply wants to understand web development.

This is an English translation of the original French book. Figures and the online example projects are still in French.

Table of Contents

Part 1 - Web Pages

• Chapter 1 - Web Page Server
• Chapter 2 - HTML and Web Pages
• Chapter 3 - CSS Style

Part 2 - Web Server

• Chapter 4 - Static and Dynamic Modes
• Chapter 5 - The HTTP Protocol

Part 3 - Databases

• Chapter 6 - The Relational Model
• Chapter 7 - SQL Queries
• Chapter 8 - Connecting the Server to the Database

Part 4 - Front-End Interactions

• Chapter 9 - Event Handling in JavaScript
• Chapter 10 - Sessions and User Accounts

Appendix I - Teaching

• NSI Première (French high school, year 11)
• NSI Terminale (French high school, year 12)

Appendix II - Frameworks

• Templating
• Single Page