The “ecosystem” term of the title is used as a metaphor of the economic context in Cluj, which establishes close relations between organisms such as the IT community, universities and financing resources. Each of these, the IT community through execution, the university through research and the local financing resources by sustaining the first two, are involved in creating a network of interdependencies and conditionings. The emergence of startups within this ecosystem is interpreted as an instrument of measuring innovation and entrepreneurial culture.

One of the main concerns of Cluj IT Cluster is the human resource of the industry. It is well known that the IT in Cluj, still substantially based on outsourcing services, is in a constant need of well-trained people, who should be as numerous as possible. It is also a known fact that most of the IT companies in our city are permanently in search of new talents. According to the existing data, also confirmed by our members, we are talking about hundreds of jobs available, for which it is difficult to find the right candidates.

In the 23rd number of Today Software Magazine we started a discussion about what Java SE8 brings new. Almost unanimously, Java specialists state that the lambda expressions, as a general topic, but also the implications they bring about, represent the most important features of the current version. That is why I thought it useful for the first article to be on this particular topic.

Inspired by the “What is wrong with the Romanian IT?” article published by Ovidiu Șuța from ISDC in the 23rd edition of TSM, I feel the need to use my imagination to envision a possible direction for the Romanian IT. The main idea of the article, which I fully share, is that the volume business that defines the outsourcing model has become harmful for the very market it targets.  Let us skip what can be debated forever and see how we can reshape the Romanian software industry.

There is an undeniable increasing need for data flexibility and scalability, this being the reason why so many have considered NoSQL databases over the last years. However, there are pros and cons and furthermore non-relational databases were never meant to replace relational ones. Software developers and architects often have a hard time choosing one over another, especially when the format of the data is unknown or subject to change.

My name is Marius Ciotlos and I’m a Delivery Manager at Betfair. Since I started working in the IT industry I’ve been in a lot of different roles from software development to network support and computer technical support and after so many years in the industry, I hardly get excited or impressed by a single tool, because so few are actually innovating. Many tools out there are very similar with just different flavors, or so specific in their task that it is up to you to find how to build your workflow with them.

Managing a software development team is a job that hasn’t got easier through the years. Since the Agile Manifesto, in 2001, many software development companies and teams have tested many of the Agile methods and techniques successfully. Also known as Extreme Project Management (XPM), this approach to project management mainly addresses the aspect of changing requirements. It will increase the level of adaptability in a development team, but it will decrease that of predictability.

Agile programming is based on developing the software product in small incremental blocks, when the client’s requests and the solutions offered by the programmer progress simultaneously. Agile programming is based on a close relation between the final quality of the product and the frequent deliveries of incrementally developed functionalities. The more deliveries are carried out, the higher the quality of the final product. In an agile implementation process, the modification requests are regarded as positive, no matter the development stage of the project.

Published in Issue 25 Read more

In the last couple of years, the whole mobile world, and we’re talking big names: Android, iOS, Windows, adopted the concept of flat design. The purpose is the same: offer a better experience to the user through the use of clean understandable user interfaces. With iOS 7, Apple introduced flat design to its operating system along with some new user experience concepts like the idea of “always know where you are” for a better access to different types of data. One of the best examples is the Notification Center,

As Jonathan Bowen mentioned in his book “Getting Started with Talend Open Studio for Data Integration” as soon as the second computer was manufactured, systems’ integration became an essential part of IT teams’ work. Today’s systems complexity together with the fast pace that the businesses evolve at highlight the need of a set of tools that allows us to quickly execute the integration tasks. Also, we have to be able to promptly react in front of new business opportunities.