What is Web Development

In 1995, based on an earlier survey by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (USBLS), Boehm predicted that the number of end-users performing programminglike tasks would reach 55 million by 2005 (Boehm, Clark, Horowitz, Madachy, Selby & Westland, 1995). Adjusting this information for the accelerated rate of computer usage and other factors, Schaffidi, Shaw, and Myers (2005b) now predict the end-user population at American workplaces will increase to 90 million by 2012, and that these workers will probably execute some type of programming-like task. In a 2004 report, USBLS published projections of occupational growth patterns to 2012 and reported slightly over 3 million professionals in computer-programming occupations in 2002. To summarize, the probability is that 90 million end-users are engaged in programming-like tasks at work compared to only 3 million professionally trained programmers. Thus, the pool of end-user programmers will substantially exceed the small population who view themselves as programmers for the foreseeable future. Programming systems employed by end-users include spreadsheets, Web authoring tools, business authoring tools, graphical languages, and scripting and programming languages (Myers, Ko & Burnett, 2006). Myers et al. (2006) estimates that 50 million people in American workplaces currently use spreadsheets or databases (and therefore may do programming). More specifically, Myers et al. (2006) estimates that over 12 million people in the workplace would say that they actually do programming at work. This diverse and growing population of end-user developers performing programming-like tasks is researched with respect to the emerging subpopulations forming around application specific activities (e.g., spreadsheets, database, Web development). Each of these subpopulations or communities of end-users has characteristic needs and abilities requiring specialized attention. There are even more end-users participating in Internet- based tasks related to programming. During 2003, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that more than 53 million American adults used the Internet to publish their thoughts, repond to others, post pictures, share files and otherwise contribute to the explosion of content available online. At least 13% (nearly 7 million) of those Internet users claimed they maintained their own Web sites (Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2003). We characterize this nonprofessional population as end-user web developers, in that they have not been trained to develop software as part of their work responsibilities, but nevertheless have found themselves developing and maintaining Web content more and more as part of their daily activities. This review targets this large and growing population, one that presents both opportunities and challenges for information systems researchers studying Web development tools, resources, and education.