A concept of extending spreadsheet cell functions for Web application development based on a cloud platform

Web application development is confronted with increasing system complexity, new technical specification requirements, progressive changing of client terminal devices and security problems triggered by new cracking techniques. In this context, providing new methods for effectively developing Web application in low cost becomes paramount. This brings new technical challenges of developing new data modeling and new techniques in data structure, database schema, page transition control, authorization, session management, programming, and input and output interface design technical areas, as Web application development requires all of those techniques. At the same time, as the remarkable progress of information and communication technology (ICT) has been made, ICT technologies are bring dramatic changes to our lives and business. Thus, there is an increasing need for developing Web applications for business and everyday life utilization. Building on previous research and applications, this paper presents that data models for developing Web applications can be built using spreadsheets based on a cloud application development platform, called FOCAPLAS. This spreadsheet based developing approach presents our challenges on new methodologies of both the data modeling and programming for Web application development.