What Is A Web App?

[kev woodman]

Note: I've put this in the PHP forum but I can't think of a good reason why. Mods feel free to move it

On to the point. I'm trying to write a definition of the term Web application and, while I have my own ideas on what a Web app is, I'd really appreciate everyone elses views. So how would you define a Web app and what examples would you give of what is and what isn't an application?

[paul]

The defination might be like this; " It can refer to an application that accessed with a web browser that runs on Web sites or software which can be stored on web sites and downloaded to the user with ability to update and maintain". Furthermore I hope this will help you for more references;w3.org/2004/04/webapps-cdf-ws/

[kev woodman]

Thanks for the links Paul. I've seen the Wikipedia entry before but I personally feel that it's quite a weak definition. The W3C one is new to me and is quite interesting but the working group is for client-side stuff only.

I suppose some of the problems I have with the idea of a Web app being any application that runs server-side or client side are:

the usual definition of an application is too loose;

this kind of definition would seem to include simple scripts running either side e.g. would a counter script count as a Web app;

it doesn't make any division between services and other tools e.g. would a search engine count as a Web app or a service.

I'm hoping to arrive at a definition which is pretty wide in scope but also sets out firm criteria for what is and isn't a Web app. The reason that I'm hoping to do this is because Web Engineering techniques are going to be suitable for the design of Web apps and not necessarily suitable for the design of other services delivered over the Web.

[paul]

Possibly you may come out with correct defination by clustering based approach on the definition of a coupling measure between interconnected components of the Web Application taking account to both the typology and topology of the connections.

[kev woodman]

Yeh I'm kind of working along the lines of a definition that includes comlpexity, interactivity and function and a general taxonomy for classification. It's part of an introduction to Web Engineering.