The SQL-based all-declarative FORWARD web application development framework

The vast majority of database-driven web applications perform, at a logical level, fundamentally simple INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE commands. In response to a user action on the browser, the web application executes a program that transitions the old state to a new state. The state is primarily persistent and often captured in a single database. Additional state, which is transient, is maintained in the session (e.g., the identity of the currently logged-in user, her shopping cart, etc.) and the pages. The programs perform a series of simple SQL queries and updates, and decide the next step using simple if-then-else conditions over the state. The changes made on the transient state, though technically not expressed in SQL, are also computationally as simple as basic SQL updates. Despite their fundamental simplicity, creating web applications takes a disproportionate amount of time, which is expended in mundane data integration and coordination across the three layers of the application: (a) the visual layer on the browser, (b) the application logic layer on the server, and (c) the data layer in the database. Challenge 1: Language heterogeneities. Each layer uses different and heterogeneous languages. The visual layer is coded in HTML / JavaScript; the application logic layer utilizes Java (or some other language, such as PHP); and the data layer utilizes SQL. Even for pure server-side / pure HTML-based applications, the heterogeneities cause impedance mismatch between the layers. They are resolved by mundane code that translates the SQL data into Java objects and then into HTML. When the front end issues a ∗Supported by NSF awards IIS 1018961, IIS 0917379 and a Google gift. †The license grant at the bottom of the first column does not confer by implication, estoppel or otherwise any license or rights under any patents of authors or The Regents of the University of California.