Project: Make a Web service

Example projects

• what's my IP?
• file-hosting service (and/or image hosting service)
• dictionary (either with a text file or wiktionary)
• thesaurus
• quiz
• time zone conversion
• date format transfomer
• address/zip code validation
• locate via IP (etc)
• conversion (currency, units, etc)
• financial calculator (mortgage, compound interest, apr/apy)
• anonymous voting system (e.g. for decision making)
• turning text into links
• site navigation
• redirect manager (see redirector)
• searching for dead links
• tags (maybe with middleware)
• online address book
• OCR of a text document

Project evaluation

For all projects:

• Does it work? (Does it do what it says its going to do)
• Documentation:
  • web page
  • text document (README)
  • code comments
• Are there tests?
• What software does your software depend on, and in what way? What additional software should likely be present in a deployed instance?
• Bonus points: integrate it into a web site (or for partial credit, tell you how you would do so)

For a single project:

• substantiveness
• architecture

For multiple projects:

• architecture
• report:
  • nature of each project
  • how did your programming improve between projects?

Security

Security is scary!

If you use auth, please don't roll your own.

How will I grade your project?

I will look at and test your web service. This is best done over the term of the project -- once you have something working, I'm more than happy to look at it and make suggestions. (While in most school projects, it is "submit you're done", this isn't how software is developed in real life, at least not by people that know what they're doing.)

It is preferable to host an update to date copy of the web service(s) at a publically accessible domain/IP. This is not required, but it makes it easier for me to give you feedback.

I'll also want your source code, which should be one or more python packages. You should host this somewhere publically accessible, such as bitbucket, but you're welcome to use wherever you want so long as I can checkout the code via a URL.

I'll attempt to deploy your code and test your service, so you should provide instructions on how to do this. Also, it should be an easy process -- preferably three steps or fewer. This is especially important if you're not publically hosting your web service, as I'll have to validate and assess your service.

Happy coding!