Web Software Applications Quality Attributes

ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/52/21378/00991329.pdf

 

The production of web software applications has been the fastest growing segments of the software industry for several years. Web software use a number of cutting-edge, diverse technologies and we know little about how to measure or ensure quality attributes such as reliability.

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A significant advantage of web-based software is that it transfers data among completely different types of software components that reside and execute on different computers. When other programming languages are used and the business application software gets more complicated. When combined with the abilities to keep data persistent through user sessions, persistent across sessions, and shared among sessions, the list of the unique abilities of web software begins to get very long.

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But when I made the same survey of web software development managers and practitioners, they claimed that time-to-market, although still important, is no longer the dominant process-driver.

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Highly reliable software has been necessary for applications that are safety critical, such as telecommunications, aerospace, and medical devices. Although many researchers are reluctant to admit it, the truth is that most software that is currently produced does not need to be highly reliable. The segments of the industry mentioned above are relatively samll. Web software, however.........

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Unfortunately, most software developers are not well educated in usability.

 

Finally, web applications are built with the latest cutting-edge software technology, not old, stable software technologies. Although, the use of new technology involves some risk, it allows us to achive levels of scalability and maintainability that could not be achieved otherwise.

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Software engineering for the World Wide Web is indeed differnt, but we can adapt much of what we already know to understand these differences. The progress we are making is extraordinary, and is allowing much of the research of the last 20 yeares to be fruitfully used. Indeed, this is an exciting time to be a software engineer.