Guest Editors' Introduction: The Essence of Web Engineering-Managing the Diversity and Complexity of Web Application Development

lthough everything has progressed rapidly in the Internet and Web arena, nothing has changed significantly in the way that most people develop Web sites and applications. Web-based systems and applications now deliver a complex array of content and functionality to many heterogeneous end users, and this trend will continue. Unfortunately, however, the practices that developers follow for Web application development today are as poor as they were when the Web was in its infancy. Many organizations and developers have successfully developed large, high-performance Web sites and applications, but others have failed or face the potential for major failures. The primary causes of these failures are a lack of vision, shortsighted goals, a flawed design and development process, and poor management of development efforts—not technology. The way we address these concerns is critical to realizing the Web's full potential. The new Web engineering discipline deals with the process of developing Web-based systems and applications. The essence of Web engineering is to successfully manage the diversity and complexity of Web application development, and hence, to avoid potential failures that can have serious implications. (For a brief introduction to Web engineering see our earlier article. 1) This issue concludes our two-part theme on Web engineering. Part 1, which appeared in the January–March 2001 issue, 2 gives an overview on Web engineering and how it's helping practitioners develop and maintain high-quality Web systems and applications. It presents a Web design framework that facilitates application reuse, an object-oriented approach to legacy integration, a tool for constructing Web documents with visual simulations, Web metrics, and a case study highlighting experiences in developing flexible Web services. This issue further explores Web-based systems development and practices and presents multidisciplinary perspectives that help shape this dynamic area of Internet and Web application development. Web application development In many cases, it's not possible to specify fully what a Web site should or will contain at the start of the development process, because its structure and functionality will evolve over time. Furthermore, the information contained within and presented by a Web site will also change. Thus, the ability to maintain information and scale the Web site's structure (and the functions it provides) are two major factors that should be considered when developing a Web site. These factors make Web application development different from traditional software development. Need for a process To better manage Web-based systems design and development, and to do …