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CS 484: Secure Web Application Development

Final Project checkpoint 1

Precisely enumerate what you want your app to do

Due: Thursday, October 3, 2024 at 2:00:00 PM

TLDR: submit this form before the deadline.

This is the second checkpoint for your final project. For this deliverable you must list, as precisely as possible, the specific functionalities that your app will be capable of doing. You do not need to say how you will implement these features, but you need to explain them in enough detail that (after you come up with an implementation plan) you will immediately be able to start working on them, and you will be able to confidently know when you’ve done so successfully.

If you plan to use any APIs or other external services to provide your functionality, you must also verify that the functionality that you plan to need to make your app work is available. Preferably this should be using a “free tier” of a service, but I won’t prevent you from using a paid service if you would like to. Using a paid service will not benefit your grade - this project is not “pay to win.”

Example from the costco scraper idea

Recall the costco discount database idea I talked about in class. A reasonable deliverable for that would be:

In the Github Issue

  • Build a scraper that takes as input the body of a Costco discount web page and outputs a machine-readable list of all the discounts on that page, including name, discount, and image URL.
  • Build a database that keeps track of all historical discounts.
  • Build a script which runs on a schedule and checks for new lists of discounts, and runs the scraper script if they’re new.
  • Build a website that allows listing and searching through all products and discounts.
  • Build a historical discount visualization similar to steamdb.info that shows when a given product has been on sale, and also predicts the next time it will go on sale.

In the form

APIs/data needed: we needed a Costco discount API, however one does not exist, so we will be using archive.org to extract historical discount pages, and the puppeteer library [CK note: in general you don’t need to enumerate what specific libraries you’ll be using for your implementation, but this is a bit of an exception because this is data that’s necessary to actually be able to implement the project at all] to extract the relevant information from each HTML page.

How do I turn in this checkpoint?

The main deliverable is again a form, including each group member’s netID in a comma-delimited list.

The form is here.

You will also need to provide a link to a GitHub issue. This issue must include each deliverable as a separate checklist item. This allows you to use this as a “tracking issue” for completing your entire project. The TAs and I should again be able to read that repository.

In each checklist item (or below the checklist, your choice), provide the full precise description of what functionality you plan to deliver.

Additionally, in the form you will be required to provide a list of each API you plan to use, and provide a description of what functionality you need from it, and why you are confident you’ll be able to get the data/functionality you need from it. Note that you don’t need to know HOW you’ll use it, just that it’s there and you are confident enough that it will work for your needs.

Remember that this deliverable is worth zero points. If you don’t turn it in, I will just move forward assuming that your app has whatever reasonable functionality I think it should have.

If your plan is questionable in any way, I’ll start a conversation in the issue about what to do about it.

What happens if you don’t turn in the checkpoint?

Nothing besides the MVP (due in week 12) and the final project (due at the end of week 15) are graded for points. The things that you propose in each checkpoint set expectations for what your group will do and how you’ll do it. If you don’t set those expectations, I’ll just grade everything based on what I think a good project is expected to do - you could receive full points because what you did was actually fine, or you could receive zero points because you’re not implementing what I expected you’d implement. It’s highly recommended you do the work to prepare and submit this checkpoint.