READABLE: An Approach and an Environment for Developing Maintainable Web Software

Software maintenance is expensive and difficult because software is complex and maintenance requires understanding code written by someone else. A key component of maintainability is program understanding. Program understanding, however, is problematic for software developed on the web because web applications comprise a mix of technologies and because the rapid pace of web development often means formal development practices, including documentation are ignored. This research proposes an approach, called READABLE, that is aimed at improving understanding and maintainability of web applications. The READABLE approach achieves this goal by making the control flow among web application components visible in a separate layer. This layer allows easier program understanding for the software developers, and can also be used by a controller for execution of the application, making the web application self-documenting. A controlled laboratory experiment shows that the READABLE approach improves program understanding.