A system and method of translating an abstract notation of an application to a series of sub-applications representing a central application. Also described is a multi-tier application system for generating the central application for deployment on a predetermined combination of selected components. The system comprises an abstract notation description file to contain data for the central application. The system also has an application editor for entering a selected set of input parameters to provide the data, and an application generator for transforming the data from the abstract notation to a selected platform notation corresponding to the selected components. The selected notation is contained in the central application, wherein the deployment of the central application monitors the communication of component data between the selected components. The sub-application can be generated for a variety of computer platforms or languages for deployment on an n-tier system, as directed by the intended components. The central application can be applied to distributed web data-centric application.