A new textbook by NJIT professors Maura and Fadi Deek and alumnus Wei Yao Ph.D. ’24 brings to completion a project they began with the late James McHugh, a longtime NJIT professor, academic leader and mentor whose influence on computing education at the university spanned decades.
Published this summer, “From Code to Cloud: Developing Web Applications” grew from McHugh’s work with the Deeks and from IT 202 – Internet Applications, a course he developed and taught with Maura Deek, senior university lecturer in NJIT’s Department of Informatics. The book carries that classroom foundation into a broad guide to modern web application development, while fulfilling the Deeks’ commitment to complete a final project McHugh had approached with enthusiasm before his death in 2022.
McHugh brought a long record in computing, mathematics and teaching to NJIT. He earned his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories before holding several leadership roles at NJIT, including director of the Ph.D. program in computer science, acting chair of Computer and Information Science and director of the Information Technology program. He was a tenured professor of computer science with a joint appointment in informatics.
Teaching was also central to his NJIT career. McHugh received NJIT Excellence in Teaching Awards in 2002 and 2021, and was named a University Master Teacher in 2009, a designation NJIT reserves for faculty with a sustained record of recognized teaching excellence.
That commitment to students was deeply intertwined with his relationship with Fadi Deek, now distinguished professor of informatics and mathematical sciences. Their connection began more than 40 years ago, when Deek was an NJIT undergraduate and McHugh served as his senior project advisor. McHugh encouraged Deek to pursue graduate education, provided him his first teaching opportunity as a teaching assistant and later became his Ph.D. advisor and research mentor.
The relationship eventually developed into a decades-long scholarly collaboration. McHugh and Fadi Deek co-authored three books and dozens of papers, and the two began discussing what would later become another book on web application development.
The cloud is an evolving concept.
When Fadi Deek became NJIT’s provost and senior executive vice president in 2013, Maura Deek partnered with McHugh in developing and teaching IT 202, the course that became a foundation for the eventual book. Web development, systems integration and programming remain among Maura Deek’s primary teaching areas at NJIT.
After McHugh’s death, the Deeks committed to completing the work and later invited Wei Yao Ph.D. ’24 to join them as a co-author.
Yao, now an assistant professor at UW-Stout Polytechnic, earned his doctorate in computer science at NJIT under co-advisors Fadi Deek and Distinguished Professor Grace Wang. His research spans areas including blockchain and Web3 infrastructure, decentralized digital identity, vehicular network security and cloud-native systems engineering. He joined the book project in part to help revise coding material as the technologies described in the original work continued to evolve.
That evolution is central to “From Code to Cloud.” Rather than concentrating on a single programming framework or set of tools that may quickly change, the book emphasizes the underlying concepts needed to understand how web applications work.
It follows the development process from foundational internet protocols, HTML and programming through databases, application development, security and cloud technologies. The aim is to serve students learning web development in an academic setting as well as self-taught developers and professionals seeking a more structured understanding of the field.
“The cloud is an evolving concept, so our book has been updated along with the advancing technology,” Maura Deek said.
That emphasis on fundamentals reflects the book’s progression from code to increasingly complex systems: understanding not simply how to use a particular technology, but how the components of a web application interact and how those principles carry forward as technologies change.
The book also retains a more symbolic connection to the idea of communicating information. Fadi Deek conceived its cover design using elements inspired by Roman temples and the ways architectural features can convey meaning through their arrangement and interaction with the natural environment.
“It’s the concept of conveying coded information through design and its associated changes, much like the change of seasons,” Fadi Deek said.
For the authors, however, the book’s most enduring connection is to McHugh and the work he began as an NJIT teacher, mentor and collaborator. What started in the classroom and developed across years of collaboration and friendship now concludes with a text intended to carry those lessons to another generation of students and computing professionals.
“From Code to Cloud: Developing Web Applications” is published by Auerbach Publications, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group.
All royalties from this book will be contributed to one of the three scholarships established by Fadi and Maura Deek at NJIT.
