Jarca Software

At Jarca we continuously thrive in improving our software development strategy in order to maximize our efficiency. To do this we regularly challenge our technologies, tools, processes and management techniques. This helps Jarca hold the highest standards for software quality while providing very competitive costs.

Research & Development Each year, Jarca invests in different R&D projects to improve and perfect our tools that increase our software development productivity. This practice allows us to always keep up with the latest and greatest technologies and maintain or improve stability, security and performance. Obviously, our clients interests are at heart for these tools help us reduce substantially our project costs.

Thanks to this investment, Jarca can offer its clients fully customized software solutions while maintaining tight schedules and budgets.

Agile Management
Jarca manages its different projects using an iterative project management approach based on the Agile methodologies. By following such an approach, our clients get a clear understanding of the project's direction and content as it evolves. The client will see some results at each iteration (generally between 1 and 3 weeks). This way, the client can validate and comment the work that has been done and make sure that the project is going in the right direction. At the end of a project, there are no bad surprises as the evolution was carefully followed by the end users.

For each Project, a careful analysis starts off as the first iteration of the process. During this iteration, Jarca will evaluate the client needs and specifications if order to deliver a "light" document that will contain:

• The problems the software must solve
• The client specifications
• The processes that the software must manage
• UML diagrams that model the information to manage
• Wireframes for the principal application screens

Even if the analysis will give a good idea of what the end product will hold, some modifications will most probably need to be made: clients will come up with new ideas, priorities will change, etc. Whatever the reason, we know from experience that client needs will evolve during the course of a project. This is where the iterative process comes in handy since it allows the client to reevaluate the situation at each iteration and to modify its course.

Once the project is completed and delivered, the support and maintenance phases are managed using the same iterative process. This will allow the client to prioritize his needs for every iteration start and validate the changes at the iteration end.

Tools, Technologies and Methodology Here are the well known technologies we are currently using to realize most of our software:

• Jboss AS
• Seam / JSF / Richfaces
• Hibernate / JPA
• Mysql / MSSQL / Oracle

We also use many other Agile software development concepts such as:

• Test Driven development (TDD): This practice makes sure that every software module is properly tested as the tests are written before and during the actual writing of the code.
• Continuous Integration (CI): By using this method, each modification made to the software will be validated by a battery of tests making sure there are no regressions brought in by these new modifications.

As far as programming goes, Jarca develops and maintains tools that increase the software development productivity. Jarca team members follow the MDA (Model Driven Architecture) as well as RAD (Rapid Application Development) concepts in order to generate a maximum of code based on UML diagrams. These concepts as well as other well known software design patterns are applied from project to project to continuously improve the general process.

By maintaining and evolving these practices and tools, we increase our productivity and reduce our project costs and deadlines.