Who is Colorado Digital?
Colorado Digital, originally known as Denverdata Web, was founded by Tom DeGerlia, whose early passion for computers led him from a career in chemistry to pioneering in the digital space. Established in 1998 in Denver, Colorado, the company arose from Tom’s vision to deliver superior software and database solutions, focusing on sectors such as aviation and image technology.
Overcoming challenges like the Y2K era, Colorado Digital has evolved alongside the web, adapting and expanding its services to include web development, web-based applications, and search engine optimization. The company prides itself on being a problem solver that translates customer goals into technical solutions, adhering to the philosophy of helping non-technical people achieve their technical aspirations.
The firm's dedication to innovation and customer success has garnered it significant recognition, including multiple awards that underscore its commitment to excellence and its role as an industry leader. Colorado Digital remains at the forefront of the digital industry, continually enhancing its offerings to meet the dynamic needs of the market.
The Story
Discovery of Pythagora
Tom Delia from Colorado Digital stumbled upon the Pythagora VSCode plugin while watching a YouTube video where Matthew Berman was talking about its benefits. Interested in what it could do, Tom and his team took a closer look. They saw how Pythagora could help them bring together the roles of developers, architects, and project managers into a single tool. After trying it out and seeing how it fit with their current processes, they decided to start using it, expecting it to make their software development smoother and more coordinated.
Implementation of Pythagora
The integration of Pythagora at Colorado Digital began with applying the plugin to internal projects. As mentioned by Justin Goldman in the interview, the tool was used daily in their development processes, such as the WordPress Procurement RFP system and a client-facing form builder. These projects benefited from reduced manual effort and accelerated feature development.
While starting to use Pythagora on a daily basis on client projects, the team faced a learning curve. Tom Delia highlighted the initial challenges and the ongoing process of mastering Pythagora's AI components to fully utilize its potential. This phase involved the tool’s integration into their workflow, ensuring that Pythagora effectively supported their project management and development needs.
Roles played by Pythagora
Developer: Pythagora acts like a proactive coding partner. It doesn’t just write code; it also runs and reviews it, checks for errors together with the user, and then dives into debugging. Pythagora basically handles the coding cycle from start to finish, making it easier for developers to maintain focus on creative problem-solving instead of routine tasks.
Architect : As an architect, Pythagora determines the best technologies for your project based on the application’s requirements. It analyzes the project needs to design a robust and scalable architecture, selecting tools and technologies that will best support your application now and as it grows.
Product Owner: Pythagora steps in as a detail-oriented product owner. It helps draft the complete tech specs of a product, prompting you to fill in any gaps you might have overlooked. This ensures that the development team has a clear, prioritized backlog where the most impactful features are highlighted, aligning perfectly with strategic goals.
Tech Lead: Acting as a tech lead, Pythagora keeps a close eye on the technical execution of the project. It ensures that everyone adheres to best practices and that code quality remains high. It also guides the team through technical challenges and promotes an environment where continuous learning and improvement are part of the daily routine. This can be beneficial for the user to ramp up their own learning curve.
Creating a new software solution from scratch
Connecting to an existing custom-built REST API service for document management
User authentication flow using AWS Cognito
Display, management and editing of complex structured documents
Real-time WYSIWYG edit/preview using a heavily-customized open source component
Testimonials
Justin Goldman:
"It has definitely sped up development in many, many ways from future to, you know, implementation. Really just knowing what you need to implement typing it out and then the GPT pilot does the rest."
Tom Delia:
"It actually turned out very quickly to, to be completely different than everything else that we'd look at and really take a pretty novel approach of really looking at the architecture at a high level."specific project requirements involved heavy modification of available UI components, a task that would previously require an expert developer specializing in the niche."