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“API?” – How LendingHome Approaches “Legacy” Technologies by Sam Aarons LendingHome is on a mission to simplify the mortgage process, but that’s not always easy in a world where we hear “API? What’s that?” from our third-party vendors. For the ones that do have technology solutions the phrases “FTP” and “Fixed-Width” are frequently thrown around. This talk will dive into the solutions we’ve built that abstract away some of these concepts and how we provide clean interfaces for these services to the rest of the organization. If you’ve ever wanted to learn how modern companies interface with the old, this is the talk for you. This is a sponsored talk by LendingHome.
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In this talk titled "API?" – How LendingHome Approaches "Legacy" Technologies, Sam Aarons discusses LendingHome's mission to simplify the mortgage process through technological innovation. The primary theme revolves around integrating modern systems with legacy technologies, particularly the challenges presented by third-party vendors utilizing outdated protocols like FTP and fixed-width files. Key points discussed include: - **Understanding the Landscape**: Aarons introduces LendingHome as an online mortgage platform that has eliminated traditional paperwork by utilizing various technological solutions. He highlights their use of a Ruby on Rails application and numerous vendor integrations. - **Integration Challenges**: A major issue for LendingHome is dealing with legacy APIs from vendors. Aarons emphasizes the importance of recognizing where these vendors are coming from, acknowledging that their definitions of modern technologies might differ significantly from the expectations of a tech-savvy company like LendingHome. - **Lessons Learned**: Aarons outlines three critical lessons from their experiences: - **Build the Interface You Want**: Instead of directly integrating with a vendor’s legacy API, build an internal API that abstracts the complexities for your team. This helps mitigate difficulties associated with unfamiliar or cumbersome vendor interfaces. - **Plan for Failure**: Acknowledge the high likelihood of failures when working with legacy systems. The talk stresses the need for robust logging practices and maintaining copies of sent and received files to troubleshoot issues better. - **Be Efficient When Reading and Writing**: Aarons advocates for treating files as they are—utilizing efficient streaming parsers and methods to avoid memory overload when processing large files, as many legacy systems use outdated file formats like XML and CSV. - **Case Studies**: Aarons shares anecdotes about creating microservices, such as "Rainmaker" and "Grand Central," which efficiently manage interactions with various FTP vendors while adhering to the principles discussed. These systems allow for streamlined file transfers, minimizing manual intervention and errors. - **Finally**, Aarons concludes with a reinforcement of the importance of compassion and understanding in technology integrations. He encourages considering the human elements of vendor relationships and emphasizes that efficiency not only optimizes system performance but also fosters better collaboration between teams. Overall, the talk serves as a practical guide for modern tech companies trying to integrate with older systems, illustrating the combined value of technical solutions and empathetic practices in overcoming integration hurdles.
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