A mess very definitely is technical debt. True, as opposed to the "clean" debt that Uncle Bob's advocating, it's a bit like getting expensive cash advances on

A mess very definitely is technical debt. True, as opposed to the "clean" debt that Uncle Bob's advocating, it's a bit like getting expensive cash advances on a credit card or going to a loan shark. A mess is likely to be a lot harder to discharge than the technical debt that comes from careful well-crafted decisions; the approaches you need to take may be different; and there's an increased chance that you won't be able to get out from the burden of debt. But it seems to me that all of those points fit in very nicely with the general analogy of debt, and I'm not sure why Uncle Bob thinks otherwise.