#213 - Moldable Development: Explain Systems & Make Better Software Decisions - Tudor Girba
Apr 14, 2025
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Tudor Girba, CEO of feenk and creator of the Glamorous Toolkit, dives into Moldable Development, a fresh approach to software engineering. He argues that effective software development is more about making informed decisions than just writing code. Girba highlights the inefficiency of reading legacy code and advocates for creating tailored tools to enhance workflows. He views legacy systems as untapped opportunities for value creation and emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and emotional intelligence in modern development practices.
Software engineering should be viewed as a decision-making process that goes beyond merely constructing systems for better outcomes.
Moldable development advocates for the creation of custom tools to address unique software challenges and improve development workflows.
Reframing legacy systems as opportunities for innovation can help organizations leverage existing knowledge and reduce technical debt effectively.
Deep dives
The Importance of Reading Code
Developers often spend more than 50% of their time reading code, a fact that highlights a significant aspect of the software development process. However, the conversation around how to effectively read code is rarely addressed, which means this critical skill has never been optimized. Reading code is essential for making informed decisions about a system, and it is often a process filled with inferences rather than direct insights. Without explicit discussions on this topic, the opportunity for improvement remains largely untapped, suggesting that the way we approach software engineering should pivot toward treating it as a decision-making activity rather than solely a construction task.
Legacy Systems and Their Challenges
As development practices advance and software is produced at an increasingly rapid pace, legacy systems become a growing challenge, often likened to the plastic waste problem. Many organizations are unable to effectively recycle or modernize these older systems, resulting in a significant accumulation of technical debt. The pitfalls of legacy systems often stem from a lack of visibility and understanding, as teams are frequently unaware of the underlying architecture and dependencies that exist. The notion that legacy systems represent only obstacles must shift; these systems contain valuable encoded knowledge that, if understood and managed, can drive new opportunities for innovation.
Moldable Development Concept
The concept of moldable development emphasizes the necessity of creating custom tools tailored to specific problems encountered during software development. Traditional approaches often rely on generic tools, which fail to address unique challenges faced by developers in their specific contexts. By enabling developers to build tools on-the-fly, moldable development aims to enhance decision-making capabilities and improve the overall development experience. This customizable approach allows teams to adapt to the dynamic nature of software engineering, fostering an environment where informed choices can be made quickly and effectively.
The Role of Tools and AI in Development
The interaction between development tools and AI is poised to transform how developers approach challenges while building software. Tools like the Glamorous Toolkit exemplify the potential of a customizable environment where developers can create specific solutions to their individual problems. The integration of AI can further streamline this process by assisting in generating tools or summarizing complex code, allowing developers to focus on decision-making rather than merely code generation. However, the responsibility to understand and make decisions based on the underlying system remains crucial, ultimately shaping the role of AI as a supportive resource rather than a replacement.
Critical Thinking and Questioning in Engineering
A shift in mindset is needed to foster a more robust approach to software construction, where critical thinking and questioning become central to the development process. By dedicating time to reflect on how to solve problems without blindly relying on common practices, developers can uncover opportunities and inefficiencies within their systems. This practice encourages the cultivation of a questioning mindset, which is vital for gaining deeper insights into the architecture and effectiveness of a project. Building this skill set can help create a culture of exploration within teams, ultimately leading to more innovative solutions and better system understanding.
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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
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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.
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.
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