Nimble Code: Tag alacra

Moving On

harrisj@nimblecode.com (Jacob Harris) — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 10:37:00 -0700

Eight years. That’s how long I have worked at Alacra, starting fresh out of school in the heady days of the first web boom. Eight years is an astounding length of time to most programmers, conditioned to a revolving door approach to employment, and it is a testament to what an interesting and nurturing place Alacra is that I’ve been here this long. Furthermore, I’m hardly an anomaly among the developers, most of whom have been here well over five years too. It’s a place where people like to stay, and it feels more like a family than an office sometimes. But I am now leaving. Alacra’s been my only post-college job, and it’s simply time for me to try something new.

Next week, I will start working at New York Times Digital. Yes, that New York Times that is delivered to about 1.5 million readers in dead tree form. That number might seem impressive in itself, but 50 times that number of users read the online web version, meaning I will be working on apparently the most popular online news site in the world. Yow. No pressure there. Seriously though, I am looking forward to the challenges and I hope to learn a lot of new skills on the job. The new office building will also be pretty sweet when it opens.

Still, the change is weird. It’s definitely been a strange two weeks in this liminal zone, and I am filled with conflicting emotions. I am sad about leaving all my colleagues at Alacra, but enthusiastic about the opportunities ahead. It’s an exciting time.

The Silliness of SOA

harrisj@nimblecode.com (Jacob Harris) — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 09:06:00 -0800

There seems to be a lot of buzz around the concept of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), as long as you don’t ask any of its proponents what it actually means. For an example of the ways in which English can be mangled by technical jargon beyond recognition, check out some of the definitions from A Defining Moment for SOA and Revisiting the Definitive SOA Definition to see what I mean. My personal favorite from the bunch is

SOA is a form of technology architecture that adheres to the principles of service orientation. When realized through the Web services technology platform, SOA establishes the potential to support and promote these principles throughout the business process and automation domains of an enterprise.

which really tells me nothing at all about why this is cool and where you would start if your CEO suddenly decided you needed it. Cutting through the bombast and hype, it seems like SOA is basically

Wrapping a backend database or similar resource in a small component for business logic you can talk to with XML.

This is definitely cool for many reasons (loose coupling, security, building big things from small parts), but I don’t understand why there’s so much hype about it now. Not to boast, but we’ve been doing this at Alacra for 8 years now, and I’m really gobsmacked that this sort of architecture would be a revelation to anyone, especially since it builds on design patterns good sense and the older Unix and later Internet philosophy that Small Pieces Loosely Joined can make great things. And SOA is pretty much what the earliest XML-driven web services were.

I can only assume that the latest hype about SOA is less about what the technology is, but what it is not. Hint: add a P and you can see what businesses find so refreshing about SOA. SOAP is a heavyweight protocol that can be good for some external APIs, but is a lot more work than a simple quick and dirty internal application often needs. Imagine being able to drop the requirements of WSDL bindings, XML typing, even limited data structures to get the most lightweight, low-ceremony solutions you can feel comfortable with using. And since it’s internal, you don’t have to worry about the “shame” of not being fully SOAP+WS-whatever compliant for your API. Looking at it this way, no wonder they’re excited. I’d be excited too if I were able to stop documenting and start hacking for change.

Emerging from the Deep Web

harrisj@nimblecode.com (Jacob Harris) — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 02:55:00 -0700

After a long period of working in relative obscurity to the web at large, my employer Alacra has now launched a store to sell some of the premium content to the public. Gentlemen, I present to you (in Beta form), Alacra Store

It’s a very interesting time for us here at Alacra. Although we are a small company compared to the media behemoths that surround us (ie, Thomson, Lexis, etc.), we have always managed to thrive by delivering agile and powerful solutions to our customers and making their happiness our #1 priority. And although I can’t really talk about it, there are great things afoot. For more analysis, see the always excellent Fred Wilson. I particularly like it when he says

I have been involved with a lot of companies over the years, but very few, if any, are as loved by their customers and are as unknown to the rest of the world as Alacra.

But that may change shortly. Hopefully not the “loved by their customers�? part. I am talking about the “unknown to the rest of the world�? part.

That’s us. And if there is one thing I love even more than the new technologies we will be using with the store, it’s the fact that I can finally show people the stuff I (and my able colleagues) have been working on.