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Technical debt isn't technical

Technical debt isn't technical

Technical debt is not primarily caused by incompetent developers, architecture astronauts, unrealistic UX people or even stupid project managers. What causes it then? It is a symptom of weak abstractions, which stems from insufficient understanding and modelling of the problem domain. These inadequacies are compounded by organizational inertia and communication problems. This means that we cannot hope to address our so-called technical debt by virtuous coding alone. In order to avoid technical bankruptcy, we must step away from the keyboard and start addressing the complex mess of human issues that ultimately affect the software we are making.

Einar W. Høst

February 01, 2019
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  1. 01.02.2019 17 SHIPPING FIRST TIME CODE IS LIKE GOING INTO

    DEBT. A little debt speeds development so long as it is paid back promptly with a rewrite... The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid. Every minute spent on not-quite-right code counts as interest on that debt. Entire engineering organizations can be brought to a stand-still under the debt load of an unconsolidated implementation.
  2. A rewrite will end up with the same problems as

    the original unless you close the understanding gap. — @sarahmei
  3. ( WHEN ARE TWO THINGS EQUAL? ) ( WHEN ARE

    THEY THE SAME THING? ) 01.02.2019 150
  4. ( WHEN DO TWO THINGS BECOME DISTINCT? ) ( WHEN

    HAS ONE THING BECOME ANOTHER? ) 01.02.2019 152
  5. ( WHICH CATEGORY DOES A THING BELONG TO? ) (

    CAN A THING CHANGE CATEGORY? ) ( IS IT THE SAME THING IF IT CHANGES CATEGORY? ) 01.02.2019 153
  6. I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT NATURE FRUSTRATES US BY DESIGN,

    BUT I REJOICE IN HER INTRANSIGENCE NONETHELESS. — sj gould
  7. IF YOU REMAKE AWFUL SOFTWARE FROM SCRATCH WITHOUT CHANGING THE

    CULTURE THAT CREATED IT YOU’LL REMAKE AWFUL SOFTWARE. — @MALK_ZAMETH
  8. COROLLARY TO CONWAY’S LAW: IF YOU DESIGN A SYSTEM, BUT

    YOU DIDN’T DESIGN THE ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE, YOU’RE NOT THE SYSTEM’S DESIGNER. — @MATHIASVERRAES