Daniel Lopez, Codee: “as a society, we expect technology to be flawless, and the pressure is often on the developers”

These days, when technology takes over almost every field, coding skills are becoming an increasingly valuable asset.

Code is what’s behind many important tools we use today, from games that entertain us to security applications like VPNs that protect us. Due to the amount of coding needed daily, the demand for tools that can improve the process has also increased. It is essential not only to know how to code but also to do it efficiently and to fix any mistakes as soon as possible.

To find out more about tools that can significantly improve development projects, our researchers contacted Daniel Lopez, the Global Head of Sales and Marketing of Codee – a software development platform that provides automated code inspection specifically designed to improve the performance of applications.

What has your journey been like? How did the idea of Codee come about in 2012?

The idea came after years of work by Manuel Arenaz, current CEO and co-founder of Codee, to achieve R&D results that demonstrated the technical feasibility of a new disruptive code inspection analysis technology. We saw that the complexity of software development was going to explode due to the rapid evolution of the hardware industry and that the bottleneck was going to be in the software to exploit all its computing power. Thus, we detected a business opportunity in the market, which was demanding new solutions for the development of software for modern hardware.

Can you introduce us to your platform? What are its key features?

Codee is a software development platform that provides automated code inspection specifically designed to improve the performance of applications. Codee scans the source code without executing it and produces a report for the developer indicating the issue, its location, why it penalizes performance, and how to fix it in order to make the code run faster.

The key features of Codee are:

• Quick assessment of the potential performance improvement.
• Auto-mode to optimize the source code and verify its correctness, targeting vectorization and memory efficiency issues on microprocessors.
• Guided-mode to semi-automatically optimize the source code for microprocessors and accelerators following best practice recommendations for computations, memory usage, and data transfers.
• Integration with compiler vectorization reports.
• Interoperability with CI/CD frameworks through data exchange file formats.
• Open catalog of performance optimization best practices.

Codee’s main benefits are, first of all, costs because it extends hardware lifespans and reduces development costs. Also, it’s saved time since Codee decreases development hours, shortening the software time-to-market. Thirdly, expertise – our program reduces dependability on expert developers. Lastly, energy because it facilitates the development of greener applications.

Despite all the solutions and providers available today, some companies and individuals still refuse to update or automate their operations. Why do you think that is the case?

There could be many reasons which can be summarised as a lack of trust, lack of knowledge, resistance to change, and cost concerns. Providers must focus not only on the technology but also on these aspects.

How did the recent global events affect your field of work?

Codee has operated with a remote policy from day one – we work with our customers from any location through the Internet and modern communication tools. However, we are firm believers in the “human touch” and are happy to be able to again resume visits to our customers and colleagues.

What processes are you most excited to see optimized or automated with AI in the near future?

Technology is helping us and our societies in industries that have a high impact on society, such as healthcare, renewable energies, mobility, electronics, or High-Performance Computing. At Codee, we have developed a technology that helps develop code to ensure the newest solutions exceed the demanded requirements.

What are some of the best practices organizations should follow when developing software or applications?

Related to software performance, which is what concerns us, the Codee team has put together an open catalog of best practice rules for performance with over 60 items and growing. All of the recommendations, opportunities, defects, and remarks of this catalog are automatically detected and reported by the Codee platform, and specifically, it can apply the opportunities by automatically rewriting the code. The developer will be able to discover the performance issues hidden in their source code with Codee.

What would you consider the main challenges developers run into nowadays?

Probably the biggest challenge is that the technology is rapidly changing, and developers have to understand and support it (AI, 5G, Metaverse…). As a society, we expect technology to be flawless, and the pressure is often on the developers. Solutions like Codee are key to supporting and empowering developers in their day-to-day jobs.

Besides coding tools, what other measures or practices do you think not only can enhance but also secure business operations?

Beyond coding tools and with regards to enhancing the software code:

• Follow the best industry practices
• Comply with the standards and regulations
• Establish and follow procedures for QA to ensure optimal code is released

What does the future hold for Codee?

Today, software is around us in a myriad of services and products, and code complexity is rapidly growing. At Codee, we foresee a bright future as we keep evolving our solutions to automate time-consuming manual tasks, empowering developers to provide more efficient code and helping companies to shorten the time-to-market while achieving the highest levels of quality for the end users.