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CS 328 - Week 13 Lecture 1 - 2024-04-15
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TODAY WE WILL
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*   announcements
*   PHP, sessions, OCI, and "branching back"
*   prep for next class

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*   should start reading/doing activities in zyBooks Chapter 6 -
    More PHP
    *   deadline to complete these: 11:59 pm pm Friday, May 3

*   watch for class e-mail when Homework 10 is posted

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*   CS FACULTY CANDIDATES should be giving their TEACHING TALKS during
    the next THREE Wednesdays in CS 328:
    *   Wednesday, April 17
    *   Wednesday, April 24
    *   Wednesday, May 1

    *   the FIRST 45 minutes will be their talks,
        FOLLOWED by CS 328 course material for the REST of those
	    class sessions

        *   RECORDINGS will be posted to supplement for the
	    missed class time

    *   Because of the importance of student feedback on these
        candidates, you will receive 2 clicker questions' credit
	for attending their talks
	*   (and there WILL be at least one actual clicker question
	    during the class material following)

*   Let me know if you have any questions about this!!

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PHP Survival Tips
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*   it really helps, during debugging, to have included in
    your PHP:

    ini_set('display_errors', 1);

*   it really helps to use at least a helper function
    for each state in your application's state diagram,

    (and maybe more!)

    ...and to start with stubs for these within your
    application's "driving" PHP

*   when you get a completely blank screen as your PHP response,
    remember you can use the php command-line interface
    on nrs-projects to see if there's a parse error

*   I also am finding it useful to output p elements
    at intermediate points when I can't figure out *where*
    a bug is. (<p> before the while loop </p>,
               <p> DID connect </p>,
	       <p> called function blah with argument <?= $param ?>, etc.)

*   browsers CAN be a *pain* when you try to view the source
    for a postback PHP -- I'm finding that, lately, both
    Chrome and Firefox are fetching the NEXT state when I'm
    trying to see the PHP-generated source in my browser for
    debugging!

    *   this MIGHT be a preference that can be set...?

    *   Safari, currently, is NOT doing this to me, so I am
        finding myself using that a lot!