We developed the TSM application for iPhone / iPad at the initiative of Dan Suciu , Director of Engineering @3Pillar Global , to collaborate to write it and publish it on AppStore . The development team has been Agile in every sense. The team was originally made up of three iOS programmers: Madalina Miron , Daniela Bulgaru and Tudor Stânean, with Gabriela Botiş as project manager. Subsequently, Robin Molnar brought his contribution on the QA part, and for look & feel, our colleagues from Gemini Solutions: Dan Hădărău and Marius Chincisan.

Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) design pattern defines three major components: Model, View and ViewModel:
- Model: Business domain (logic related to the business of the application, entities, data access)
- View: User interface (in Windows Phone – PhoneApplicationPage)
- ViewModel: “The model of the View” – an abstraction of the View that facilitates the communication between the View and the Model

This is a story about simplicity and robustness, two terms that apparently don’t fit very well together in the same sentence while speaking of software development. And this was a reality back in the days when everybody was building their own backend solution, their own communication stack, their own language, their own … whatever. Cloud based platforms transformed this complicated world into a world where the most challenging matter is to have the right world and business understanding; technical stuff? – forget about it, it’s in the cloud, up and running, just use it.

As we were saying in the last articles about software craftsmanship, Test Driven Development is one of the practices considered to be at the core of a software craftsman. Besides the increasing numer of articles, blogs, short movies or books on this subject, Test Driven Development (TDD) continues to be a subject that generates confusion in the programmer communities. This article will try to structure and to clarify the subject and to offer support to those willing to learn more about it.

Clustering is a means to analyze data obtained by measurements. This allows us to cluster data into classes and use obtained classes as a basis for machine learning, faster measurement analysis or approximate future measurement values by extrapolation. In the following sections we will try to cover the topic of how to cluster data. This technique is especially useful when dealing with large amounts of data, a scenario not uncommon in regards to the explosion of data and information we are dealing with nowadays.

How many times has it happened to you to have a problem in production or in the testing environment which you are unable to reproduce on the development machine? When this thing happens, things can go off the track, and we try out different ways of remote debugging. Without even knowing, helpful tools can be right near at hand, but we ignore them or simply don’t know how to use them.

Model Based Testing nicely deals with modern development methodologies. But also in traditional development projects, this way of testing has many advantages over other testing methods. However, this is highly dependent on the way we organize our MBT testing process and what role is played by the tester. Should the tester blindly assume an already established model or should the tester be responsible for the preparation of the test model?

The Cluj R&A Endava team operationally hosted The Open Championship, golf’s biggest European Open, for the 3rd time in a row and contributed to another successful chapter of Open’s history. The Open Championship® is organized by the R&A® starting with the 19th century and the sport barriers were long time exceeded – currently The Open® represents one of Scotland’s most popular icons and draws hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.

The way in which we listen to music has enormously changed over the last 15 years, from audio tapes and the well-known walkmans, to audio CDs and mp3, up to the iPods with thousands of songs. Nowadays, if you have internet access and a mobile phone, you can listen to millions of songs, anywhere and at any time. This is due to the evolution of onlines and smartphones which have opened a new horizon towards collaborative consumership.

Start-ups are beginning to be a fashionable subject in 2013. There are more and more organizations which wish to support these efforts, and we have recently published, in no. 12, an article on Gemini Foundry. We come back to this subject since different start-ups have shown interest in this initiative and there is the need of some clarification. Serban Tir, the technical director of the Gemini Solutions group of companies, together with Radu Popovici, have answered a few questions for us.

Business Days is already a well-known event on the national market and this month we have the opportunity to take part in its edition in Cluj. Laszlo Pacso, Business Days’ organizer had the kindness to answer to Today Software Magazine’s questions.
Tell us a few words about yourself. Very briefly about me: I’ve been an entrepreneur for more than 13 years, very passionate on project management, a business networking specialist

The idea of innovation is approached by numerous companies which focus on the optimization of their internal processes and finally on increasing the business value, adding the benefit of seeing their clients extremely satisfied with the products they offer. Lean Six Sigma, a relatively well-known approach for obtaining some excellent and efficient results, can help the executives of multinationals to discover new innovation opportunities beyond carrying out simple operations, to reach a high degree of productivity, a solid financial performance, as well as an inherent disposition towards innovation.

This edition of the Today Software Magazine appears at a time when the vacation is ending and people come back to work, have energy and appetite to learn and improve. That is why I will not disappoint the readers of this magazine and of my book reviews and I will choose a captivating subject. Book Java SOA Cookbook by Eben Hewitt addresses mainly to developers and architects with a large degree of experience. Those with less experience can find references about the level at which the architectures with witch they are working should reach.

Empathy is defined as the ability to stand in someone else’s shoes. This is the definition we tend to use. The specialists define empathy somewhat the same, presenting however different facets of it. Why do I write about empathy? Firstly, because it’s more and more encountered. It’s not new but now it gets a lot of coverage especially in business writings. At this point empathy is considered that one quality that makes the difference in the work environment. I agree with this and most probably a lot of people do but not because it’s the new thing, but purely based on an utilitarian perspective.

Gogu is a funny character, cynical here and there, an introvert for whom the interior monologue represents an alternative to real life. With Gogu’s help, we analyze different aspects of the life of a project manager and his team, we suggest solutions that are easy to understand and apply. As Gogu would put it… “almost common sense”.
We invite you to follow Gogu and send him your suggestions.
“Gogu, what’s with that dumbstricken face?!”
Misu pitied the imprudent that dared pick on Gogu on such a moment. Nobody wished to become Gogu’s target when he was angry, as the sourness of his replies would burn the soul of the unfortunate, and if by any chance you also had the lunacy to answer back, the fire of Hades would immediately become a much happier alternative.