Model-Driven Web Engineering Approaches Research Articles

Challenges for the Adoption of Model-Driven Web Engineering Approaches in Industry.

Challenges for the Adoption of Model-Driven Web Engineering Approaches in Industry.

Integrating Web-Based Collaborative Live Editing and Wireframing into a Model-Driven Web Engineering Process

Today’s Model-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) approaches automatically generate Web applications from conceptual, domain-specific models. This enhances productivity by simplifying the design process through a higher degree of abstraction. Due to this raised level of abstraction, the collaboration on conceptual models also opens up new use cases, such as the tighter involvement of non-technical stakeholders into Web development. However, especially in the early design stages of Web applications, common practices for requirement elicitation mostly rely on wireframes instead of MDWE, created usually in analog settings. Additionally, state-of-the-art MDWE should integrate established and emerging Web development features, such as Near Real-Time (NRT) collaborative modeling and shared editing on the generated code. The combination of collaborative modeling, coding and wireframing, all in NRT, bears a lot of potential for improving MDWE practices. The challenge when covering these requirements lies with synchronizing source code, wireframes and models, an essential need to cope with regular changes in the software architecture to provide the flexibility needed for agile MDWE. In this contribution, we present a MDWE approach with live code editing and wireframing capabilities. We present the conceptual considerations of our approach, the realization of it and the integration into an overarching development methodology. Following a design science approach, we present the cyclic iterations of developing and evaluating our artifacts, which show promising results for collaborative Web development tasks that could open the gate towards novel, collaborative and agile MDWE techniques.

A Pattern-Based Development Approach for Interaction Flow Modeling Language

Development and deployment technologies for data-intensive web applications have considerably evolved in the last years. Domain-specific frameworks or model-driven web engineering approaches are examples of these technologies. They have made possible to face implicit problems of these systems such as quick evolving business rules or severe time-to-market requirements. Both approaches propose the automation of redundant development tasks as the key factor for their success. The implementation of CRUD operations is a clear example of repetitive and recurrent task that may be automated. However, although web application frameworks have provided mechanisms to automate the implementation of CRUD operations, model-driven web engineering approaches have generally ignored them, so automation has not been properly faced yet. This paper presents a pattern-based development approach for the Interaction Flow Modeling Language as a way to finally automate repetitive specification tasks. Our approach is illustrated by defining and applying IFML patterns for CRUD operations. Additionally, a supporting tool, which enables automation, is shown. The suitability of our approach and the utility of its tool have been evaluated by its application into several real projects developed by a software company specialized in model-driven web application development. The results obtained present evidence of a significant productivity improvement obtained by the automation of the IFML specification of CRUD operations.

Automated design of multi-layered web information systems

In the development of web information systems, design tasks are commonly used in approaches for Model-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) to represent models. To generate fully implemented prototypes, these models require a rich representation of the semantics for actions (e.g., database persistence operations). In the development of some use case scenarios for the multi-layered development of web information systems, these design tasks may consume weeks of work even for experienced designers. The literature pointed out that the impossibility for executing a software project with short iterations hampers the adoption of some approaches for design in some contexts, such as start-up companies. A possible solution to introduce design tasks in short iterations is the use of automated design techniques, which assist the production of models by means of transformation tasks and refinements. This paper details our methodology for MDWE, which is supported by automated design techniques strictly associated with use case patterns of type CRUD. The novelty relies on iterations that are possible for execution with short time-scales. This is a benefit from automated design techniques not observed in MDWE approaches based on manual design tasks. We also report on previous experiences and address open questions relevant for the theory and practice of MDWE.

Quality evaluation for Model-Driven Web Engineering methodologies

ContextThere are lots of approaches or methodologies in the Model-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) context to develop Web Applications without reaching a consensus on the use of standards and scarcity of both, practical experience and tool support. ObjectiveModel-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) methodologies are constantly evolving. Moreover, Quality is a very important factor to identify within a methodology as it defines processes, techniques and artifacts to develop Web Applications. For this reason, when analyzing a methodology, it is not only necessary to evaluate quality, but also to find out how to improve it. The main goal of this paper is to develop a set of Quality Characteristics and Sub-Characteristics for MDWE approaches based on ISO/IEC standards. MethodFrom the software products context, some widely standards proposed, such as ISO/IEC 9126 or ISO/IEC 25000, suggest a Quality Model for software products, although up to now, there are no standard methods to assess quality on MDWE methodologies. Such methodologies can be organized into Properties, thus, a methodology has artifacts, processes and techniques. Then, each item is evaluated through a set of appropriate Quality Characteristics, depending on its nature. This paper proposes to evaluate a methodology as a product itself. ResultsThis paper recommends a set of Quality Characteristics and Sub-Characteristics based on these standards in order to evaluate MDWE methodologies quality. Additionally, it defines an agile way to relate these Quality Sub-Characteristics to Properties with the sole purpose of not only analyzing, but also assessing and improving MDWE methodologies. ConclusionsThe application of these Quality Characteristics and Sub-Characteristics could promote efficiency in methodologies since this kind of assessment enhances both the understanding of strengths and weaknesses of approaches.