On-line database applications (or Web applications, as they are widely known today) have a growing popularity in an Internet-addicted information-dependent world. Their success resides mainly in the new „Web technologies” which emerged and developed to support Web applications. The Unified Modeling Language and its Web extensions, the Extended Markup Language, ASP and ASP.NET script languages as well as ADO and ADO.NET data access technologies are just a few elements which strongly influenced the growth of Web applications.
This literature review and case study research proposes to identify information technologies which became key elements in Web applications development and to realize a comparative analysis of each one’s contribution, so as we can provide a consistent hierarchy of these technologies, based on their importance. The research work will follow the Web application lifecycle main stages (requirements collection, design, build and maintenance). The research will identify and analyze the general level of knowledge for each stage (as stated by the literature and the field practice), the tools used, and will also state the most important future development trends.
The research includes reviewing the most cited and quoted works in each research field, the most widely used development tools, as well as quizzes and direct interviews with developers and users of Web applications. Some Web polls have also been issued.
After stating the research objectives and hypotheses, a research plan was built. The author has over six years of interest in this field, and also some material results (articles, papers and thesis work in progress).