Open source concept of software tools in applications design

This thesis deals with a set of free software technologies, tools and programming languages that are used for application development and the utilization of these tools on the development of a specific application named ZIDEC. Nowadays, we can hardly imagine life without computers, and even though the word computer more or less reminds us of the hardware box, screen, keyboard and computer mouse, the true value of problem solving is brought to us by computer applications and software. During the evolution of software, two main streams appeared: commercial ownership solutions and free ware. In these rough economic times many individuals and companies realize the importance of economical behaviour. One of the possible ways of economizing is changing commercial solutions with free ware. In this diploma paper I have tried to choose from the many free ware solutions and find those that help in developing and up-keeping applications such as project management, code revisions, virtualization of development environment and the choice of programming language. Along with the choice of software, this paper describes the concept of setting a development environment in a virtual machine. One of the main reasons to use free ware is of course economizing, saving on the costs of development and up-keeping of the applications. The main goal of the developed application ZIDEC is to simplify and speed up the long term process of calculating the seismic resistance of masonry building. The application is fully used in the Karlovšek d.o.o. company