Over 27 years at Imarc, lots has changed. Our roots are in web work, and everything from how things are built to how we think about web development has evolved.
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What about anniversaries makes us want to reflect on the past? Is it just human nature to think about where we've been and how far we've come? Perhaps it's a desire to mark progress, celebrate achievements, and gain perspective that will guide us going forward. Or maybe we just enjoy browsing through old photos of ourselves to recall how youthful we were and cringe at our terrible hairstyles and fashion choices.
Imarc was founded in 1997, and I joined in May 2000. As Imarc turns 27, I look back on my years with the company and how the web, Imarc, and I, as a developer, have evolved together.
It felt like the web was evolving faster in those days. Imarc was just a small five-person company, with Nils, Dave, Nick, myself, and a designer named Matt, who came on board just a few weeks after I did. To some degree, it felt like we were learning on the job, constantly trying to adopt new ideas and technologies with limited guidance.
The early days of web development
Developing websites in the early 2000s was primitive by modern standards. We developed sites for Internet Explorer 4 and Netscape Navigator 4. Neither one supported CSS layouts well, so making a page look the same in both browsers meant using HTML tables to create a grid layout.
PHP 4 was still a pretty rudimentary scripting language. We wrote procedural code with little to no separation between logic, design, and content. JavaScript was limited and used sparingly, mainly for simple interactions. Tools like frameworks or libraries were scarce. Testing and debugging could be tedious. Responsive design and mobile-specific sites were almost unheard of. You needed to be something of a full-stack developer with at least some working knowledge of HTML, Javascript, PHP, SQL, and server and database management to survive.
And yet, despite the technological limitations, Imarc was always trying to push the limit with what we had. Some of our oldest clients came on board back then. For example:
We developed the first iteration of an asset library for Starwood (now Marriott).
We built our first Certified Public Accountant (CPA) society site (Massachusetts Society of CPAs), which would go on to become a niche for us.
We also developed the first version of the Mass Housing Partnership (MHP) website.
New development frameworks for better security & user experiences
Around 2005, several web development frameworks emerged that significantly influenced the industry and laid the foundation for modern web development. Back end development saw the rise of Ruby on Rails, Django, ASP.NET, Symfony, CakePHP, and others. They ushered in an era of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture. As developers, we were challenged to determine which ones to learn and master. An Imarc developer, Will Bond (with the help of numerous Imarc developers), created his own framework, which Imarc adopted as our in-house development platform.
Websites became more interactive with the introduction of jQuery in 2006. jQuery played a transformative role by making JavaScript much more accessible to developers. Leveraging RESTful APIs, jQuery made it possible to develop complex applications. Modern browsers with better CSS support saw us eschew HTML tables for page layouts. The rise of smartphones initially led to the creation of mobile-specific websites. Around 2010, the idea of responsive design, building a website that works on any screen size, took root.
Version Control Systems like SVN (2000) and Git (2005) became more widely adopted. They allowed more developers to work on the same project without fear of overwriting each other's changes. As such, we adjusted our workflow to incorporate these best practices.
The increasing complexity of websites led to more specialization of development. Back-end developers focused more on code that runs on the server. We learned to write integration tests and experimented with Test Driven Development (TDD). Front-end developers focused on user experience (UX) and jQuery powered interactive features. We all adopted new initiatives to improve security and performance.
From 2005 to 2015, frameworks made it easier to build web applications quickly and efficiently using and employing best practices that would shape modern development. Many of these frameworks laid the groundwork for later developments in web technology and continue to influence web development today.
In those days, I helped develop great-looking websites for law firms like Morrison-Mahoney and Sugarman & Sugarman, a few membership-driven sites for CPA societies, and some e-commerce sites. I built complex web applications like the mortgage calculator for MHP and worked on the Seis Brace application for ASC Engineered Solutions (Anvil International).
Modern development tools & frameworks
Today, we have even more advanced development tools. Mature Content Management Systems (CMSs) like Craft CMS and WordPress (the first version launched in 2003) give us a secure, reliable, well-tested foundation to build upon. Reactive Javascript frameworks like Vue and React have largely replaced jQuery because they've given us more powerful tools for building web applications.
Package managers such as Composer and NPM make it easy to add open source code to our projects and keep it up-to-date, so we invest less time reinventing the wheel. We run our own local web server for development using Docker. Automated deployment and Continuous Integration have added new tools to help us do our jobs better.
Our development software can do code completion and automatically correct spelling. It helps us manage code applications that have grown exponentially since 2000. And recently, new artificial intelligence (AI)-driven code tools help us write and debug our code faster than ever.
What's next?
So, where will we be in five or ten years? The developers at Imarc are always looking at how we can employ new tools and technologies. We're all learning to use AI to work better and more efficiently. AI won't replace us. What seems certain is that we're on the verge of another significant cycle of change in how we do our jobs.
The most important advice I've received as a developer came from a computer science professor who told my class.
You can never stop learning in this industry. The day you stop learning is the day you become obsolete.
That is both a challenge and an opportunity. It can be a struggle to keep pace with all of the new technologies, but it also means there's always room to grow and improve. Embracing this mindset is what helps us stay adaptable and resilient. Remaining curious and open to change keeps our work fresh and engaging.
While Imarc is no longer in its youthful, exuberant start-up phase, there's a simple joy in remembering the spirit of that time that helped us grow to where we are now. Through all the bad haircuts and fashion decisions, beyond all the challenges to reinvent ourselves, we can find something new while still respecting and remembering the old. Because both old and new are wonderful in their own ways.
If you want to reach out to talk about a decade of web development or simply for fashion advice (though we can't guarantee the quality of the latter), we're all ears!
