Instructors

Stan Jarzabek, National University of Singapore
Ulf Pettersson, ST Electronics

Abstract

Web Applications (WA) are developed and maintained under tight schedules. Much similarity across WAs creates opportunities for cutting development cost and easing evolution via reuse. This tutorial will show a practical way to exploit
similarity patterns at architecture and code levels - to simplify the design of WAs, helping to meet the unique challenges of Web engineering. The approach is based on designing structures to represent similarity patterns in generic way. Simplification of the WA design is then achieved by providing a mechanism to reuse such generic structures. We apply so- called "mixed strategy" approach: Initial design is done using conventional methods (architectural/component design, ASP, JSP, PHP, J2EE or .NET). Then, we apply generative technique of XVCL to build generic structures to unify similarity patterns for which conventional techniques fail to provide effective generic solutions. By applying such "mixed strategy" approach, on average, we reduce conceptual complexity (and maintenance effort) of a program solution by 60%, raising the levels of reuse by similar rates. We base the tutorial on projects by ST Electronics Pte Ltd who applied the "mixed strategy" approach to build ASP, J2EE and .NET Web Portals, and on studies that explain in detail technical underpins of the solutions.

Biographies

Stan Jarzabek is an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science, School of Computing, National University of Singapore (NUS), an adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo. He spent 12 years of his professional career in industry and 20 years in academia. Stan is interested in all aspects of software design, in particular techniques for design of adaptable, easy to change (high-variability) software. He has published over 90 papers in international journals and conference proceedings (his recent paper received the ACM Distinguished Paper Award and two other papers were selected as "best papers" at leading conferences). Stan has given tutorials on topics of reuse and re-engineering, most recently on cost-effective Web engineering at ESEC-FSEí05, Lisbon, Sept 2005 (with Ulf) and at ICWEí05, Int. Conf. on Web Engineering, Sydney, July 2005. Stan was a Principal Investigator in a multi-national collaborative project involving universities (NUS and the University of Waterloo), and companies in Singapore and Toronto.

Ulf Pettersson is a Technical Director at ST Electronics (Info-Software Systems) where he leads the Technology Office responsible for R&D of reusable software frameworks, definition and application of Engineering Processes, and management of the Project Management Office. Ulf has 20 years experience in full lifecycle software-centric systems development with focus on complex, mission-critical turn-key development that cover business areas like Air/Naval Command and Control Systems, Public Safety Systems, Web-Based Systems and general IT systems. He has extensive mentoring as well as hands-on experience with Development Process Management, Object Oriented Analysis and Design, Ada, C/C++, Visual Basic, ASP, SQL, Microsoft Visual Studio, IBM Rational tools (RUP, Rose, RequisitePro, SoDA, ClearCase, ClearQuest). Ulf completed his M.Sc (Aeronautical Engineering) at the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden 1985. Over the past 5 years, he has been collaborating with the National University of Singapore in relation to XVCL and product-line research.