A twelve-year-old can build a nice Web application using the tools that came standard with any Linux or Windows machine. Thus it is worth asking ourselves, “What is challenging, interesting, and inspiring about Web-based applications?”
This textbook written by Eve Andersson, Philip Greenspun, and Andrew Grumet for the MIT course “Software Engineering for Internet Applications”, is intended for juniors and seniors in computer science. It assumes that you know how to write a Web application and debug it. It does not assume knowledge of any particular programming languages, standards, or protocols. The most concise statement of the course goal is that “The student finishes knowing how to build amazon.com by him or herself.”
Federico Cargnelutti 