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Identifier

000460739

Title

Visual full-stack programming for dynamically extensible WEB applications

Alternative Title

Ολοκληρωμένος οπτικός προγραμματισμός για δυναμικά επεκτάσιμες WEB εφαρμογές

Author

Ραπτάκης, Μιχαήλ Γεωρ.

Thesis advisor

Σαββίδης Αντώνιος

Reviewer

Μαγκούτης, Κωνσταντίνος
Πρατικάκης, Πολύβιος

Abstract

The notion of full-stack development of web applications refers to the practice of implementing both the front-end and back-end system layers. In this context, a full-stack developer faces the overall challenge of implementing the GUI (front-end), as well as the core or business logic, the data access, and any linkage to third-party services. The respective tools and frameworks available to programmers have become more stable and sophisticated, facilitating the creation of advanced modern web applications. However, the very dynamic and evolvable nature of these applications typically necessitates close collaboration between development teams and end-users. In this context, driven by the emerging popularity of enduser programming, we focused on building a complete visual-programming framework for the entire web application stack. The latter is targeted to end-users that can be characterized as programming-literate, however, not possessing the skills of professional software engineers. The main mission of our tool is to support visual programming of all layers of a web application by its end-users, thus serving as a powerful configuration, adaptation and extensibility tool. Our tool is offered as a JavaScript library, accompanied with a visual program editor on top of Google Blockly, an Open API specification editor and our source code generator. The original Blockly editor is extended with supplementary blocks to: (i) manipulate JSON data, (ii) manage time-related operations, (iii) deploy underlying JavaScript libraries, (iv) generate JSX elements for front-end extensions relaying on React JS, and (v) support ODBC-based relational database interfacing and seamless web service integration. In summary, this tool is the first we know to facilitate full-stack extensibility through visual programming for modern web applications. In the context of future work, we study more versatile source-code generation, custom GUI blocks, alternative service API standards and support for debugging-related features.

Language

English

Subject

Framework

Software tool

Βιβλιοθήκη

Δυναμικά επεκτάσιμο

Εργαλείο

Issue date

2023-12-01

Collection

School/Department--School of Sciences and Engineering--Department of Computer Science--Post-graduate theses