Why Dittofi Put The Code Back Into No-Code
By James Virgo
7th November 2024
Introduction
After nearly 20,000 hours of development, the Dittofi team, headed by brothers James & Samuel Virgo, has launched the first version of their no-code product. Before you switch off… this is not like any other no-code product on the market. The Dittofi solution has a unique function. It allows users to convert their no-code designs into real, high quality, full stack code that they can own. The code Dittofi generate is so good that it looks as though it was custom made by an experienced, innovative team of highly skilled software engineers.
Why no-code
The no-code movement has recently been gathering momentum. The momentum stems from the problems many have experience from the massive imbalance in the supply & demand for IT resources. Increasing demand for IT personnel caused a wave of modern no-code / low code platforms to be developed. However, even the modern no-code platforms, for the most part, do not give users access to usable application code. Amongst other issues, this causes vendor / platform lock in & a build up of technical debt.
To help illustrate the problems that this can cause, consider the following scenario. Let’s assume that because of resource or time constraints you choose to build your tech stack on a no-code system. One day your no-code system is going to have performance issues or you will need a feature that is not included in that no-code platform. Without control over the code, you’ll be stuck in between:
- Waiting for your no-code platform provider to build in that feature or fix their scalability issues or,
- You will have to scrap your no-code product & build your software the traditional way.
Future Businesses Will Be Built On Code
No-code is a great story, but it is quite clear that future businesses will be built on code & not on no-code. However, there are obvious benefits of being able to build software without having to type out all of the code. Dittofi’s founding team saw both the benefits & the problems with no-code. They thus decided to leverage the same style interface of a no-code platform but, going against the trend, decided to build their interface on a core foundation of high quality, proprietary auto code generators.
James Virgo, Dittofi CEO said “the goal was to let users build software through point & click, but to generate real, high quality code in the background that our users could own. Now, if they ever hit a limitation within our solution & needed to leave the platform, they can do it”.
To accomplish this objective, the Dittofi team sat down & compiled the accumulated knowledge & experience from their professional careers into the Dittofi code generators. This includes functionality for building client facing apps, high performance, scalable analytical software as well as process automation & internal back office systems.
James Virgo said “for me it is over 10 years of R&D, building products in a range of industries & lessons learnt from working with highly skilled software engineers all compiled into a single product. Now everyone can leverage the experiences that I have had & that my team has had, to build, deploy & own software just as powerful as if our team built it by hand”.
Using the Dittofi proprietary auto code generation technology users are able to:
- Build & securely host their apps with Dittofi, in the same way as if they are working on any other no-code platform,
- Automatically generate a clean, full stack, high quality, human readable version controlled code base, that users can take & own at any point.
- Last but not least, the code generated is able to scale up to handle millions of users & hundreds of millions of real-time records every day.
James Virgo says “this is rapid software development, without the quality trade off. Dittofi gives you all of the benefits of no-code – fast, low risk, democratization of development – but consumers also get the opportunity to own a safe, scalable, modular & extensible code base.”
James Virgo adds, “the central problem that Dittofi saw with no code, is that no code means no code. Customers can develop applications but never own their asset. To us, this clearly sets limits on the use cases for no-code. With Dittofi, we therefore wanted to give consumers the chance to build their applications the no-code way, but we recognize that users may, at any point need access to the code that underpins those applications.
No-code is a good story & not needing the code does have its place but, we see that in the near future there will be a return to the cost challenge in the supply & demand for high quality code.
My brother Samuel & I felt particularly strongly about the problems we saw in no-code, because a negative trend has the potential to damage customer & investor perception of augmented programming. This could ultimately curb advances into what is a great idea & one that carries huge potential for society as a whole.”
Conclusion
Samuel Virgo, Dittofi CTO summarizes what Dittofi believe best. “We really believe in the benefits of no-code, but without the code there are a lot of question marks. The majority of people already recognize the limitations of most app builders. I know that I do. But this is why James & I have put our own time & money on the line developing Dittofi. We want to build something with unquestionable quality & utility for entrepreneurs, small, medium & large businesses struggling with IT constraints. In some ways it doesn’t matter if the business is successful or not. What is important is that we are moving the industry forward in the correct direction.”
Early stage investors c-f²: “software has quickly become the DNA of each company, be it a startup, an SME or a multinational. Dittofi allows companies to control their own software development without external dependencies. This is a game changer.”