Web Engineering

Today Web applications range from small-scale information dissemination sites, often developed by individuals who received little training, to large-scale, commercial, enterprise planning and scheduling systems, developed by multidisciplinary teams of people with quite different skills and backgrounds. §§Web Engineering differs from traditional software engineering in three main areas. First, the diversity of people involved in Web development, ranging from technical networking and security specialists to artistically educated Web page designers. Second, the intrinsic characteristics of Web applications, i.e. the possibly non-sequential navigation patterns, the diversity of execution environments that need to be dealt with, or the threats caused by insecure communication mechanisms. Third, the wide audience for which these applications are designed, encompassing casual users as well as experienced and/or formally trained professionals.§§Mendes and Mosley have selected experts from all areas involved in Web development: after an introduction into the discipline itself and its intricacies, the contributions range from metrics for effort estimation and productivity benchmarking through conceptual and model-based application development to non-functional requirements like usability, performance, and other quality criteria.§§The result is a self-containing, comprehensive overview about Web engineering which is ideal for professionals and researchers who want to know the state of the art of this discipline, as well as for courses at an advanced undergraduate or graduate levels.