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> Yes technical debt is bad. Technical debt is like any debt. It's bad if you come due on it and don't have the resources to pay it off. Unlike cash debts, te

> Yes technical debt is bad. Technical debt is like any debt. It's bad if you come due on it and don't have the resources to pay it off. Unlike cash debts, technical debt rarely comes due in a tangible fashion. If getting to my next round vs. failing means leveraging technical debt, I'm going to do that by all means. It's not necessarily easier to fix tech debt at scale, but having more resources means it's less impactful on bandwidth.

nilkn 6y ago
This is my preferred way of thinking about it too. I wouldn't say debt in general is universally bad, and so I wouldn't say the same thing about technical debt either. Technical debt can save a company by pushing something forward and launching a product sooner than a competitor. It can save a big customer by fixing a bug for them quickly that if not fixed immediately would have caused them to cancel a multimillion dollar contract. It can also eat away at a company if you let it accrue for decades and never pay it down.
- karottenreibe 6y ago
  The latter being much more likely to happen to the average company than the former, in my experience.
Viliam1234 6y ago
Financial debt is okay if it gives you an important advantage now, and you can pay it off later, and you remember to actually do it. If you get into debt so that you can have a nice new TV quickly, and you forget to pay it off, so it keeps increasing, and you only pay attention to it when the debt collectors start calling you... that is a problem. In my experience, most software debt resembles the latter case. The goal is to meet a deadline sooner, and there is absolutely no intention of spending resources to fix it later, unless the customers start making too many tickets. When a manager says "later" or "low priority", it usually means "never, unless we absolutely have to". Technical debt is always a "low priority" that will be addressed "later". Yes, there are situations when meeting a specific deadline is critical, and it is a rational decision to cut some corners and fix things later. The problem is that after the deadline is met, the "fix things later" part is usually forgotten. A new deadline is set, and new corners need to be cut, etc.

nilkn 6y ago

This is my preferred way of thinking about it too. I wouldn't say debt in general is universally bad, and so I wouldn't say the same thing about technical debt either. Technical debt can save a company by pushing something forward and launching a product sooner than a competitor. It can save a big customer by fixing a bug for them quickly that if not fixed immediately would have caused them to cancel a multimillion dollar contract. It can also eat away at a company if you let it accrue for decades and never pay it down.

karottenreibe 6y ago
The latter being much more likely to happen to the average company than the former, in my experience.

Viliam1234 6y ago

Financial debt is okay if it gives you an important advantage now, and you can pay it off later, and you remember to actually do it. If you get into debt so that you can have a nice new TV quickly, and you forget to pay it off, so it keeps increasing, and you only pay attention to it when the debt collectors start calling you... that is a problem. In my experience, most software debt resembles the latter case. The goal is to meet a deadline sooner, and there is absolutely no intention of spending resources to fix it later, unless the customers start making too many tickets. When a manager says "later" or "low priority", it usually means "never, unless we absolutely have to". Technical debt is always a "low priority" that will be addressed "later". Yes, there are situations when meeting a specific deadline is critical, and it is a rational decision to cut some corners and fix things later. The problem is that after the deadline is met, the "fix things later" part is usually forgotten. A new deadline is set, and new corners need to be cut, etc.