Model-driven development of Web applications

Abstract

This paper describes a methodology for the development of WWW applications and a tool environment specifically tailored for the methodology. The methodology and the development environment are based upon models and techniques already used in the hypermedia, information systems, and software engineering fields, adapted and blended in an original mix. The foundation of the proposal is the conceptual design of WWW applications, using HDM-lite, a notation for the specification of structure, navigation, and presentation semantics. The conceptual schema is then translated into a "traditional" database schema, which describes both the organization of the content and the desired navigation and presentation features. The WWW pages can therefore be dynamically generated from the database content, following the navigation requests of the user. A CASE environment, called Autoweb System, offers a set of software tools, which assist the design and the execution of a WWW application, in all its different aspects. Real-life experiences of the use of the methodology and of the Autoweb System in both the industrial and academic context are reported.

Hilda: A High-Level Language for Data-DrivenWeb Applications

“…While some tools such as AutoWeb [18] and Strudel [16] can declaratively specify the structure and content of web sites, they focus mostly on read-only applications. Consequently, they do not provide a uniform framework for handling applications that deal with both queries and updates.…”

A Notation and Framework for Dialog Flow Control in Web Applications

“…Notations for the specification of web-based UIs mostly focus on dataintensive information systems, but not interaction-intensive applications [6]: Development processes such as RMM [11] and OOHDM [15], modeling notations and languages such as HDM-lite (used by the Autoweb tool [7]), and WebML [4] support the generation of web pages out of a large, structured data basis or provide dynamic views on database content, but do not allow the specification of highly interactive features with modular, nested dialog structures.…”

Mobile Business Processes

“…The same is true for the HDM-lite notation used by the Autoweb tool [7], which supports the automatic generation of database schemas and application pages from a conceptual model; and the modeling language DoDL [6], which allows mapping of structured database content to static hypertext pages, but does not support dynamic features. Finally, while the language WebML [5] is capable of modeling simple dynamic features of a data-intensive web application by providing operation units for creating, deleting and modifying entities, it does not support more complex structures such as modular, nestable dialog sequences.…”