Introducing the Modern and Future Development of “Web Applications” Using JHipster Development Platform.

Abstract: Generating web applications with correct structure and modern functionalities using a development platform is not widely known for students in academia around the world. Modern web development is moving further towards advancement where different functionalities adapted for web application development increase and become more central in today's market. Introducing modern concepts in web application development to the students in academia at an early stage is essential in order to provide better insight of how to suitably develop and maintain the structure of modern "Web Applications".  This thesis describes the work carried out to investigate how a web application can effectively be developed and structured by the undergraduate students in the course II1302 Projects and project methods at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) using a development platform.  The case study is conducted as a research method for this thesis. The research method revolved around experimentation with an example application to identify the possibilities of using a development platform in conjunction to improve the teaching of modern web application development early in education, and then apply the development platform in the course's future projects.  This thesis identifies pertinent fields of knowledge throughout the development of a web application using the development platform to learn about the relevant concepts and definitions of modern and future technologies used in web application development. The implementation of the web application covers the areas such as automation, deployment, and monitoring. These areas are utilized in the form of the following aspects: DevOps, CI/CD, integration cloud deployment, IoT simulated device, MVC design pattern architecture for both frontend and backend, programming frameworks, i.e., Angular JS frontend framework and Spring Boot backend framework. A description of how the application is managed and what technologies and resources are used is presented.  These aspects are used throughout the process of web application development. The requirements of using the development platform aim to be relevant to the students' studies at a sufficient difficulty level in course II1302. The students are expected to have an extended knowledge in basic web application development.