Tools and approaches for developing data-intensive Web applications

Abstract

The exponential growth and capillar diffusion of the Web are nurturing a novel generation of applications, characterized by a direct business-to-customer relationship. The development of such applications is a hybrid between traditional IS development and Hypermedia authoring, and challenges the existing tools and approaches for software production. This paper investigates the current situation of Web development tools, both in the commercial and research fields, by identifying and characterizing different categories of solutions, evaluating their adequacy to the requirements of Web application development, enlightening open problems, and exposing possible future trends.