Declarative Ajax Web Applications through SQL++ on a Unified Application State
Yupeng Fu, Kian Win Ong, Yannis Papakonstantinou

TL;DR
This paper introduces FORWARD, a web application framework that simplifies development by unifying data access and page rendering through SQL++, enabling declarative, incremental Ajax pages with a single language and architecture.
Contribution
It presents a novel framework using SQL++ and a Unified Application State to address impedance mismatch and distributed data access in web apps.
Findings
FORWARD supports incremental Ajax updates automatically.
SQL++ captures semi-structured web data effectively.
The framework has been successfully used in multiple applications.
Abstract
Implementing even a conceptually simple web application requires an inordinate amount of time. FORWARD addresses three problems that reduce developer productivity: (a) Impedance mismatch across the multiple languages used at different tiers of the application architecture. (b) Distributed data access across the multiple data sources of the application (SQL database, user input of the browser page, session data in the application server, etc). (c) Asynchronous, incremental modification of the pages, as performed by Ajax actions. FORWARD belongs to a novel family of web application frameworks that attack impedance mismatch by offering a single unifying language. FORWARD's language is SQL++, a minimally extended SQL. FORWARD's architecture is based on two novel cornerstones: (a) A Unified Application State (UAS), which is a virtual database over the multiple data sources. The UAS is…
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Taxonomy
TopicsService-Oriented Architecture and Web Services · Web Application Security Vulnerabilities · Web Data Mining and Analysis
