Timeline for Blaming the ills of today on the technical debt of yesterday
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 23, 2015 at 16:32 | comment | added | radarbob | Food for thought. Post comment, I was changing direction. Nonetheless "technical debt" seems firstly, a deliberate decision; but alas, secondly it is what you inherit. So one can say hiring those who write such code is a conscious decision to incur technical debt. Oh muse! where is that shadowy line between "debt" and "WTF did you give me? I'm suing you morons!" | |
| Dec 23, 2015 at 14:34 | comment | added | Hulk | @radarbob I disagree - just like financial debt, it doesn't matter whether accumulating it was done intentionally, due to bad luck or stupidity - someone has to pay for it in the future. The term is inherently neutral in regard to the cause. | |
| Dec 23, 2015 at 4:22 | comment | added | radarbob | I suggest that incompetence is not technical debt. Seems to me that technical debt is a deliberate thing. However the OP describes incompetent programming. I can't imagine anyone buying this line: "We're not incompetent, we're strategically incurring technical debt." Not delivering function B due to <whatever> is technical debt. Limiting infrastructure to deliver function A today, knowing function B will require framework redesign is technical debt. Delivering function A as a bug infested steaming pile of failure is not technical debt. | |
| Jul 27, 2011 at 21:34 | comment | added | Nemi | @Ben - you are absolutely correct. As with all analogies, this one breaks down under a microscope. However, the comparison is still solid on a high level. It essentially dispenses with the details and talks to management on their level - as a business problem, not a technical problem. Essentially any long-running project accumulates a certain amount of technical debt and as such it means there is an added expense to development as time goes on. Since this is hidden (and not even well understood), it is in everyone's best interest to make sure it is talked about. | |
| Jul 27, 2011 at 18:48 | comment | added | Ben Hocking | @Nemi: One important difference between technical debt and financial debt is that it is much easier to quantify the latter. It's much easier to know how much financial debt you have left to pay off (even factoring in interest accumulation and recurring financial obligations) then it is to do so with technical debt. I only point this out because that's one thing that exacerbates maple_shaft's problem. | |
| Jul 27, 2011 at 15:24 | vote | accept | maple_shaft♦ | ||
| Jul 27, 2011 at 14:45 | comment | added | maple_shaft♦ | Wow, how insightful! I make it seem par for the course and chalk it up to growing pains. | |
| Jul 27, 2011 at 14:36 | comment | added | Joris Timmermans | +1 for a really good non-blaming explanation of how a project could choose (correctly!) to get into technical debt. | |
| Jul 27, 2011 at 14:21 | history | answered | Nemi | CC BY-SA 3.0 |