Ask HN: Did you ever consciously create technical debt?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523657

by philippta • 4 months ago

2 3 4 months ago

news.ycombinator.com

PaulHoule• 4 months ago

Like "do something f--ed up because I wanted to?" (what I think most technical 'debt' is) or "make a rational calculation to take an action which will save effort tomorrow with a predictable future cost" (e.g. what you might get an MBA to learn to how do in corporate finance)

bediger4000• 4 months ago

Who among us hasn't done dumb things at the direction of a manager, director or vice president?

perrygeo• 4 months ago

The original talk by Ward Cunnigham made this clear; a conscious choice is required for it to be considered debt. You are explicitly releasing something you KNOW is suboptimal, specifically because you want the benefits today and have anticipated the costs to pay it down later, as well as the interest payments should you chose not to. You're using financial leverage the same way as you would buying a house or car.

By that definition, we do this all the time. I'd wager every feature release has some degree of "oh we can address that later if/when this takes off".

If you accidentally introduce bugs or regressions that gums up the works, that's not "debt", that's a mistake. If you choose the wrong thing and realize too late, that's not "debt", it's just bad decision making. If you choose wrong and are dissallowed from ever going back and cleaning up as agreed, that's not "debt", it's bad management.

We've got to stop using "tech debt" to mean "everything we don't like about software".

Ask HN: Did you ever consciously create technical debt?

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