  Web Engineering is the application of systematic, disciplined and
quantifiable approaches to development, operation, and maintenance of Web-based
applications. It is both a pro-active approach and a growing collection of
theoretical and empirical research in Web application development. This paper
gives an overview of Web Engineering by addressing the questions: a) why is it
needed? b) what is its domain of operation? c) how does it help and what should
it do to improve Web application development? and d) how should it be
incorporated in education and training? The paper discusses the significant
differences that exist between Web applications and conventional software, the
taxonomy of Web applications, the progress made so far and the research issues
and experience of creating a specialisation at the master's level. The paper
reaches a conclusion that Web Engineering at this stage is a moving target
since Web technologies are constantly evolving, making new types of
applications possible, which in turn may require innovations in how they are
built, deployed and maintained.
