Do-It-Yourself Database-Driven Web Applications

UCSD's app2you project and its successor FORWARD project belong to the emerging space of Do-It-Yourself (DIY), custom, hosted, database-driven web application platforms that empower non-programmer business process owners to rapidly and cheaply create and evolve applications customized to their organizations' data and process needs. The hoped-for outcome of DIY platforms is paralleled to the emergence of spreadsheets in the 80s and of graphical tools in the 90s. Before the arrival of tools such as powerpoint, polished presentations had to be prepared by graphics professionals. PowerPoint enabled them to do them ourselves.