(05:57) Brought to you by Swimm.io.

⁠⁠⁠⁠Start modernizing your mainframe faster with Swimm.
Understand the what, why, and how of your mainframe code.
Use AI to uncover critical code insights for seamless migration, refactoring, or system replacement.

Are we looking at software engineering the wrong way?
What if it’s less about writing code and more about making better decisions in an ever-changing system?

Learn a revolutionary approach to understanding complex software systems in my conversation with Tudor Girba, the CEO of feenk. We explore “Moldable Development,” a groundbreaking concept that challenges traditional views of software engineering. Learn why treating development as a decision-making process, supported by custom tools, is crucial for tackling today’s software challenges, especially when dealing with legacy systems.

Key topics discussed:

Software Engineering as Decision-Making: Why software development is fundamentally about making informed decisions rather than just constructing systems.
The Inefficiency of Reading Code: Developers spend over 50% of their time reading code, yet this activity remains unoptimized.
Moldable Development: Learn how creating custom tools tailored to specific problems can revolutionize your workflow and decision-making process.
Legacy Systems as Opportunities: Reframe legacy systems as value-creation opportunities instead of burdens.
Glamorous Toolkit: Discover the innovative development environment enabling thousands of micro-tools for better system understanding.
The Future of Development Environments: Explore how AI, moldable development, and tools like Glamorous Toolkit can coexist to solve diverse class of problems.

This conversation will completely transform how you think about software development!

Timestamps:

(00:01:57) Career Turning Points
(00:08:29) Understanding How We Read Code
(00:10:43) Software Engineering is a Decision-Making Activity
(00:13:19) Reading Code is a Suboptimal Activity
(00:16:44) Moldable Development
(00:22:47) The Challenges with Legacy Systems
(00:30:17) Moldable Development Workflow
(00:46:02) Glamorous Toolkit
(00:54:15) IDE, AI, and Glamorous Toolkit
(01:00:36) Writing with Simon Wardley
(01:03:01) 1 Tech Lead Wisdom

_____

Tudor Girba’s Bio
Tudor Girba is the CEO of feenk, a company focused on modernizing legacy systems. They do that through Moldable Development, a way of programming through contextual tools. They build Glamorous Toolkit, a free and open-source moldable development environment, to show how working through thousands of contextual tools per system can be practical. In 2014, Tudor received the prestigious Dahl-Nygaard Junior Prize for his work on modeling and visualisation of evolution and interplay of large numbers of objects.

Follow Tudor:

LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/girba
Bluesky – bsky.app/profile/tudorgirba.com
X – x.com/girba
feenk – feenk.com
Glamorous Toolkit – gtoolkit.com
📝 Rewilding Software Engineering – medium.com/feenk/rewilding-software-engineering-900ca95ebc8c

_____

Our Sponsors

Manning Publications is a premier publisher of technical books on computer and software development topics for both experienced developers and new learners alike. Manning prides itself on being independently owned and operated, and for paving the way for innovative initiatives, such as early access book content and protection-free PDF formats that are now industry standard.

Get a 40% discount for Tech Lead Journal listeners by using the code techlead24 for all products in all formats.

Like this episode?
Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/213.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

From the Archives: Where Dogs Get Their Personalities