A Model-Driven Approach to develop Rich Web Applications

Abstract

Many Web applications have among their features the possibility of distributing their data and their business logic between the client and the server, also allowing an asynchronous communication between them. These features, originally associated with the arrival of Rich Internet Applications (RIA), remain particularly relevant and desirable. In the area of RIA, there are few proposals that simultaneously consider these features, adopt Model-Driven Development (MDD), and use implementation technologies based on scripting. In this work, we start from MoWebA, an MDD approach to web application development, and we extend it by defining a specific architecture model with RIA functionalities, supporting the previously mentioned features. We have defined the necessary metamodels and UML profiles, as well as transformation rules that allow you to generate code based on HTML5, Javascript, jQuery, jQuery Datatables and jQuery UI. The preliminary validation of the proposal shows positive evidences regarding the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction of the users with respect to the modeling and code generation processes of the proposal.