Webrb: evaluating a visual domain-specific language for building relational web-applications

Abstract

Many web-applications can be characterized as relational. In this paper we introduce and evaluate WebRB, a visualdomain-specific language for building such applications. WebRB addresses the limitations of the conventional imperative-embedding approach typically used to build relational web-applications. We describe the WebRB language, present extended examples of its use, and discuss the WebRB visual editor, libraries, and runtime. We then evaluate WebRB by comparing it to alternative approaches, and demonstrate its effectiveness in building relational web-applications.