Engineering Blog

We value learning and experimentation to make sure we always provide the best technology solutions for our partners. Here are some of our latest ideas, lessons and learnings.

ElixirConf US 2024

Elixir

ElixirConf US 2024: Alembic speakers to catch

This week the Elixir community is descending on Orlando for ElixirConf US 2024. Alembic’s team are there once again sharing our knowledge on all things Elixir & Ash. We’ve got a great mix of both talks and training happening. If you’re there in-person, don’t be shy to hit up our team and pick their brain. If you’re not fortunate enough to be there, get in touch separately and we’ll be happy to do a follow up session on these great topics.

Ben Melbourne profile picture

Ben Melbourne

26 August 2024 – 2 min read

Traffic direction

Software Development

Global E-Commerce: Solving the Region-Specific Content Balancing Act

In today's global marketplace, e-commerce businesses face a critical challenge: how to effectively deliver region-specific content without compromising search engine visibility, advertising capabilities, or analytics accuracy. This balancing act between localisation and technical performance can make or break a brand's international success. At Alembic, we recently tackled this complex issue for a global e-commerce brand, uncovering valuable insights and solutions that are widely applicable across the industry.

Mike Buhot profile picture

Mike Buhot

12 August 2024 – 4 min read

Igniter

Ash Framework Consulting

Igniter - Rethinking code generation with project patching

Ash Framework is ~4 years old, and we’ve only just now introduced generators and installers. As of Ash 3.1, we’ve now got generators and installers, thanks to our latest project Igniter! First, we’ll cover why I avoided them for so long. Then we dive into how Igniter changes the game!

Zach Daniel

Zach Daniel

16 July 2024 – 8 min read

Building skyscrapers from the top down

Ash

Building skyscrapers from the top down

Human history is a story of us inventing new technologies, then learning how to get the most out of them. These technological step changes are happening in software right now - faster then we’ve experienced before. This rapid progress can be hard to understand when we're caught up in the middle of it. Historical comparisons from other industries can help provide perspective on where software is at - and what might come next.

Ben Melbourne profile picture

Ben Melbourne

3 July 2024 – 4 min read

Team collaboration

Software Development

Tiny Teams Delivering Big Results

In software development, the right team structure can make or break a project. At Alembic, we've found that smaller teams - what we call "Tiny Teams” - can drive great results. They do so without the inefficiencies and communication problems that often hurt larger groups. Our teams focus on flexibility, ownership, and seamless collaboration to deliver high-quality work, proving that sometimes less is truly more.

Theo Harris

Theo Harris

23 May 2024 – 3 min read

Ash Framework

Ash

Announcing Ash 3.0

Today Alembic is happy to celebrate the release of Ash 3.0. Ash 3.0 represents a massive effort and many hours of work by members of Alembic, the Ash Core team and the Ash community; reflecting an ongoing commitment to the Ash ecosystem.

James Harton profile picture

James Harton

8 May 2024 – 2 min read

Software developers using a development framework

Ash

Simplify Your Web Development: Discover the Power of Ash Framework

As businesses increasingly rely on technology to drive operations, the demand for efficient, scalable, and easy-to-maintain applications has never been higher. This is where Ash comes in, serving as a high-level architecture for web applications, and focusing more on designing structures rather than on the minutiae of building them.

Ben Melbourne profile picture

Ben Melbourne

3 May 2024 – 4 min read

Precision machine tooling fuelled the industrial revolution

Ash

From Iron to Algorithms: How development frameworks are transforming software engineering

Just as engineering in the built environment changed radically during the industrial revolution in the 18th century, software development is in the process of going through our own period of rapid change, transitioning from the era of individual craftsmanship to industrialisation and automation.

Ben Melbourne profile picture

Ben Melbourne

3 May 2024 – 3 min read

Customers providing feedback on a product

Strategy & Advisory

Do your tech choices empower a test and learn cycle?

Test, learn and iterate is a core mantra of the product mindset. Technology needs to enable, not block this. Selecting the right tools provide this flexibility both now, and into the future. Software tools and processes need to fuel positive feedback loops.

Ben Melbourne profile picture

Ben Melbourne

1 February 2024 – 2 min read

Padlock constructed from triangles as imagined by Midjourney

Ash

Customising Ash Authentication with Phoenix LiveView

Authentication is a crucial part of most web applications. With the release of Ash Authentication, we are now able to authenticate users in Elixir applications using simple DSL on Ash resources. In this blog post, we will show you how to customise Ash Authentication with Phoenix LiveView.

Will Tan

Will Tan

19 March 2023 – 4 min read

Balloons launching against blue sky

Ash

Announcing Ash Authentication

We're extremely pleased to announce the first public release of `ash_authentication` and `ash_authentication_phoenix`. Ash Authentication allows you to authenticate users in your Elixir applications using a simple DSL on your Ash resources.

James Harton profile picture

James Harton

17 January 2023 – 3 min read

Dam in mist. Photo by Paul Mocan on Unsplash

Elixir

Elixir vs Python for real world AI/ML (Part 2)

In the last part of this series, we will explore a real-world machine learning problem in Python and Elixir. By the end you will have two end-to-end examples of how you can combine clean and unify data sources. Then use that data to train and evaluate a neural network.

Chris Hopkins profile picture

Chris Hopkins

12 January 2023 – 7 min read

An AI's interpretation of a house in the Hamptons

Phoenix LiveView

Improve UX with LiveView page transitions

Let's improve the look and feel of our LiveView apps with page transitions that help users see what's happening when navigating between different parts of your application.

Mike Buhot profile picture

Mike Buhot

25 November 2022 – 6 min read

Phoenix LiveView Dashboard

Elixir

Monitoring Phoenix LiveView performance

Phoenix LiveView is a game changer for dynamic web application development. But what happens when we get serious traffic, and things slow down? What if we have some ambitious concurrency and latency requirements?

Rob Ellen Portrait

Rob Ellen

8 October 2021 – 13 min read

Nx Logo

Elixir

High performance Numerical Elixir with Nx

Numerical performance of Elixir code has received a massive boost with the release of Nx - Numerical Elixir. This is an exciting addition to the Elixir ecosystem, read on to find out what you can do with it!

Rob Ellen Portrait

Rob Ellen

23 September 2021 – 4 min read

FP-TS Functional Programming in TypeScript

TypeScript

Intro to Functional Programming in TypeScript with FP-TS

FP-TS is a useful library for programming TypeScript with the full power of functional programming. It provides some very handy functional tools from Pipelines to Currying to make our TypeScript programs more elegant and robust.

Nicholas Hammond portrait

Nicholas Hammond

13 October 2021 – 5 min read

Git Logo

Git

The identity of a Git commit explained

Ever wondered how git commits work? This article explains what makes up the identity of a git commit. Knowing this will help you become much more confident running advanced git commands like rebase.

Kathryn Prestridge portrait

Kathryn Prestridge

15 November 2021 – 5 min read

FP-TS Functional Programming in TypeScript

TypeScript

Exploring FP-TS Options in TypeScript

FP-TS is a useful library for programming TypeScript with the full power of functional programming. In this article we explore the FP-TS Option feature and how Discriminated Unions help implement it.

Nicholas Hammond portrait

Nicholas Hammond

24 December 2021 – 5 min read