Applications Development in the Traditional fields and Mobiles

The experience matured in complex development and innovative projects and the continuous effort for the adhesion to the emerging technology standards combined with the consolidated knowledge of the application context, allow Retis to propose a series of innovations for the development and maintenance of software, ranging from the methodological field, to the functional and technological fields.
Such experiences are the foundation and guidelines both for the development of applications in the traditional field and for the development of innovative applications in the mobile field. In terms of the development methodologies, the proposed solutions by Retis are characterized by the presence of a set of innovative features such as:

• A broad repertoire of "best practices" that can ensure the success and excellence of production operations, whatever the methodology used;
• The adoption of methodologies not only those mostly consolidated and successful (Waterfall, Iterative / incremental, Extreme Programming) but also the use of tailored criteria to select the most suitable action to be implemented to the individual context, for example, for minor interventions;
• An integrated solution for testing, totally in line with the latest and innovative trends established in the market in terms of methods and technologies and to ensure to the client the delivery / release of products with a performance conform to their expectations.

The applications made by Retis derived from the combination of the expertise capital with the general principles of software engineering.

In this context, the methodological framework proposed by Retis for the development and maintenance is characterized by flexibility, innovation and pragmatic approach and is characterized by the presence of the following innovative aspects:

• Use of tools to support production (Houses of Production, development environments) the most suitable for development cycles and for the technology platforms adopted;
• Continuous improvement in planning and software development, ensured through attention to the evolutionary lines of the market in order to adapt over time the repertoire of best practices, models, methodologies and tools;
• Knowledge management, which includes both the management of the technical documentation concerning the single project and the documentation describing the planning and control processes.

It should be emphasized that a proper tailoring of the development cycle - which may seem like an "discounted" choice - whether in the essential fact to steer the efforts of the working teams towards products truly useful to the user (such as documentation designed for end users or prototypes) and to define from the outset and without ambiguity, the characteristics of software objects to be issued.

Regarding the development of mobile applications, Retis acquired through their experience, the fact that such development should not be considered in a simplistic way as the natural porting of the same techniques and methods used in the traditional field. In the mobile reality, applications development can not exempt themselves from the awareness of the difficulties represented by the limited resources of the device (screen, computational, etc.).

In this field, Retis focuses on the usability of the software products: the heterogeneity of the devices is considered from the outset of the project, by choosing the appropriate programming language. In particular Retis is specialized in:

• C++ efficient but indissolubly linked to Symbian;
• J2ME Born with the portability goal

Respect to the used programming techniques, it is based on the MVC pattern, which has proved particularly effective in the recent years, and at the same time, we prefer methods related to open source development that provide a "continuous integration" of the software and a constant test on the same target device, given the low reliability of emulators currently present on the market.