The following conversation took place between two co-workers over an instant messaging product called Sparc.
The setting is a corporate office with many cubicles. The two co-workers have been asked to design
an enterprise, grid enabled architecture. They received a single 8 by 11 Visio diagram of the architecture.
They were also directed to leverage a FpML (financial markup language) as a messaging protocol between enterprise
systems.
Ben is an existentialist with a bend on fatalism. Mike is generally an optimist, unless Ben gets too fatalistic.
[4:45 PM] Ben: Boss wants to
[4:52 PM] Mike: As long as we don't have to use it internally ....
[5:00 PM] Ben: I love it when the architecture is dictated from above. It makes designing so much easier.
[5:04 PM] Mike: And simpler, too. The whole system fits into a picture with a few boxes in it
[5:05 PM] Ben: it's pretty cool.
[5:05 PM] Ben: What's wrong with using FpML internally? You suck!
[5:06 PM] Ben: It's a nice intermediary format that allows system to communicate in a well defined language. Honestly Mike, what kind of an architect do you call yourself?
[5:06 PM] Mike: Hey, we've got enough on our plate writing our own database, our own operating system and our own programming language. I just don't need to have to use FpML as well as all that. I think it could jeopardize the entire project!
[5:08 PM] Ben: come on, that's crap. We can introduce this conversion in our custom db level, or even add it natively into our custom language.
[5:08 PM] Ben: think about it seamless integration with FpML, beautiful. Too bad FpML only covers derivatives, haha
[5:09 PM] Ben: I am sure we can work through that. We just need to work with the FpML working group to add a few parts to their spec.
[5:10 PM] Ben: 10-4?
[5:11 PM] Mike: Yeah, OK, it's taking me a while to think of a witty reply. 10-4
[5:11 PM] Ben: sorry to rush you, take your time. I just thought you were ignoring me because you are working.
[5:13 PM] Mike: Does FpML support images? In case we need to attach screenshots when we're reporting errors in market data?
[5:14 PM] Ben: Not yet, but I think we should bring this up when we discuss with them about expanding their specification to support other products.
[5:15 PM] Mike: I think whatever solution we go with, it's vital that we can scavenge unused cycles from people's mobile phones
[5:15 PM] Ben: and PDA's
[5:16 PM] Mike: and pacemakers
[5:16 PM] Ben: and watches
[5:16 PM] Mike: and elevators
[5:16 PM] Ben: maybe we can work something out where we can use the employee’s home machines.
[5:17 PM] Mike: Or people with Bluetooth devices in their briefcases as they wander past the building
[5:17 PM] Ben: good thinking, what about fax machines?
[5:17 PM] Mike: I wouldn't like to see any proposal signed off until we've really considered all these factors
[5:18 PM] Ben: I am glad at least you and me are on the same page.
[5:18 PM] Ben: We need to write up a document, someone will sign off, and then we can proceed with the development.
[5:19 PM] Ben: I think this conversation is sufficient as design.
[5:19 PM] Mike: Especially once we've deleted the Sparc logs
[5:19 PM] Ben: man, if someone has a sniffer, we're doomed.
[5:20 PM] Mike: That would be sad - especially as you introduced this product into CompanyX
[5:21 PM] Ben:
[5:21 PM] Mike: Do I have to 10-4 the smileys ?
[5:21 PM] Ben: no worries, I believe encryption is on.
[5:22 PM] Ben: no, don't worry about the smileys
[5:24 PM] Mike: I don't think we should restrict ourselves to FpML, either. We should have a meta-markup framework where we can just plug-in any standard that comes along - in case we need to support fPml or FPml or fPmL later on
[5:24 PM] Ben: I love it. Consider it added to the spec.
[5:24 PM] Mike: The spec which I hope is written in specML ?
[5:25 PM] Ben: should we look into whether we can leverage specML along side FpML as the messaging protocol?
[5:25 PM] Mike: Absolutely
[5:26 PM] Ben: http://www.mozilla.org/rhino/
[5:26 PM] Ben: I think we should use rhino tool to build out entire framework
[5:26 PM] Ben: think about it, we can release partial code, no reason to compile.
[5:27 PM] Mike: I've used Rhino before (indirectly) - it's built into JWebUnit
[5:27 PM] Ben: so, what do you think of using it as our core language?
[5:30 PM] Mike: Might be a bit low-level. I want something high-level that maps 4 boxes on a diagram into a fully built-out, productionised, resilient, performant, scaleable, internationalised system that runs on everything from a supercomputer to a Beowulf cluster to a digital watch.
[5:32 PM] Ben: do you have a copy of our entire conversation; I think it would make a wonderful blog entry.
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