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Reading mail, writing articles, planing projects are typical content creating activities done in a Web-browser. Programming was not yet one of them, but environments and tools for scripting and authoring in the Web are becoming more popular.  Web-based Programming environments  are an approach to allow developers to program their applications from inside a Web-browser. 

The idea is not new. The first occasion I have seen someone typing code into his Web-browser and executing it was in a Simulations and Animations course during my studies. The lecturer taught us GPSSH, an old simulation language. He used the white board a lot, but occasionally he opened an example on a Web-site, edited and executed source code. It was a simple but working setup. GPSSH was not indented to be an interactive language  so this approach was rather unconventional and at the same time very interesting. 
The second time I came into contact with Web-based programming was while I wrote my diploma thesis. There I learned about Active Essay~\cite{Kay1996WSD}. The essay explained evolutionary algorithms in the form of scripts that could be run and changed by the reader from within the Web-browser. 
Years later these ideas came back in the form of TinLizzy~\cite{Ohshima2007TLW}, a wiki which allowed to edit rich text and scripts visually.  This environment allowed to create such active essays right in the Web~\cite{10.1109/C5.2009.10}, no special authoring environments or any additional setup were needed to create the text or scripts. 

Our project seminar Web-based development environments was focused on the Lively Kernel, one of such environments~\cite{Ingalls2008TLK}.
For the Seminar  we used the Lively Kernel-based Wiki~\cite{Krahn2009LWD} WebWerkstatt. This wiki allows to collaboratively create and edit textual, graphical, and programable content from within the Web-browser. The students worked on various topics extending that environment:  They worked on synchronous collaboration, interactive layouting, text composition, source code management, and portable rendering of the Lively Kernel. They all developed their projects inside WebWerkstatt. There they could program, document, and present their progress and results.  The Web-based development environment allowed them to integrate their demos with their presentations in a very interactive way.  

The feedback of the  students using the a Web-based development environment helped us to see the strength and weaknesses of this approach, allowing us to evolve the system as it was used.

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\noindent June 2011 \hfill Jens Lincke
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