What's BakalAO Studios?
A technical showcase with a codfish face.
How the idea came about
It all started with Apparcao. I wanted an app to find my parked car and gave it a homely sort of name. Everyone liked it, me first.
And when a name works, it's hard to let go. The next projects (Embolsao, Completao, Aggreao) inherited that laid-back signature: names with flavour, ending in "-ao", no tie and no corporate jargon. By then it was a habit, so I turned it into a method.
Then I thought: why not bring them all under one software-brand umbrella? And BakalAO Studios was born. Yes, with a K, and I'm not giving any more explanations.
The mascot is a codfish skeleton in a captain's hat and sunglasses, and the motto says it all: software without fishbones.
Underneath, the usual: over 40 years of writing code and, lately, AI as a partner in crime. Experience dictates the architecture; AI speeds up the build.
What it is (and isn't)
It is
- A personal project and an author brand, non-profit.
- A technical showcase: old-school development shaking hands with the cutting edge.
- Proof that a veteran and a good handful of AI tools can ship fast, efficient, robust and complete apps.
It isn't
- A startup: no funding rounds, no IPO, no unicorns.
- A suit-and-tie consultancy. Nobody here says "synergies".
- A place where we pivot. Pivots make me dizzy.
Who I am
I'm Joan Vilariño (yes, with an ñ; if your keyboard rebels, "Vilarino" works too) and I've been writing code for over 40 years: official keyboard-basher, veteran and proud of it.
I'm into Heavy music (the louder the better), World of Warcraft (that's where the addons come from), every tech gadget on the planet and borderless programming: I don't care about the language, the platform or the decade; if there's something to build, count me in.
I'm direct, honest and fairly ironic (my friends would say "troll", and they wouldn't be wrong). But when it comes to the technical side I'm serious: repos, databases, APIs and going to production with the calm of someone who's been solving problems for 40 years. You can be a joker and still write code that doesn't fall over.
- Heavy
- World of Warcraft
- Gadgets
- Borderless code
Want to see what the codfish has been up to?