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Consider 4 situations: 1) My house has structural problems and is about to collapse. 2) Each time I turn on the lights in my house, I start a fire. 3) Each t

Consider 4 situations: 1) My house has structural problems and is about to collapse. 2) Each time I turn on the lights in my house, I start a fire. 3) Each time I need water in the kitchen, I need to go get it from the second floor. 4) I don't like the house color. You can refer to these 4 situations saying something vague like "My house has a problem". The term "tech debt" is similar in terms of vagueness. Not everything described as "tech debt" is objective or actionable. And the term "tech debt" facilitates neglecting things that need to be done by mixing them with things that do not need to be done. "There is an antipattern that prevents developers from testing code" is a problem that needs fixing. "I don't like tabs" is not.

wccrawford 5y ago
The first 3 of those act like debt, forcing you to spend more of something in the future if it's not changed. The last one is only a debt if you consider the emotional cost, which I think is debatable. Yes, some people use 'tech debt' improperly and aren't actually describing something that acts like a dead. Poorly structured code means the coders need to spend more time implementing new features than they would if it were just correct, for example, so that's actually 'technical debt'. Not taking care of the business's needs isn't technical debt (faster onboarding, etc), it's just a problem.
yetanotherjosh 5y ago
Your criticism applies to the word "debt" in the traditional financial sense as well. If you want to be more specific about how much and how severe the debt is, that is not a fault of the the term "debt" or a reason to stop using it. 1) I owe $0.25 to my 5yro niece because I lost a bet about whether grandma's pancakes would be overcooked. She will probably forget about this as soon as Harry Potter comes on the TV. 2) I owe $50 to my housemate for groceries but actually I paid the electric bill and he didn't so maybe he owes me instead? 3) I have an $8000 balance on my credit card but can pay my minimum balance plus $500 extra every month with no sweat. 4) I have $500000 left on my mortgage and didn't make my last 5 payments... These are all still "debt" and have varying degrees of actionability. A word that implies a dimension does not need to specify the magnitude or severity on that dimension.

wccrawford 5y ago

The first 3 of those act like debt, forcing you to spend more of something in the future if it's not changed. The last one is only a debt if you consider the emotional cost, which I think is debatable. Yes, some people use 'tech debt' improperly and aren't actually describing something that acts like a dead. Poorly structured code means the coders need to spend more time implementing new features than they would if it were just correct, for example, so that's actually 'technical debt'. Not taking care of the business's needs isn't technical debt (faster onboarding, etc), it's just a problem.

yetanotherjosh 5y ago

Your criticism applies to the word "debt" in the traditional financial sense as well. If you want to be more specific about how much and how severe the debt is, that is not a fault of the the term "debt" or a reason to stop using it. 1) I owe $0.25 to my 5yro niece because I lost a bet about whether grandma's pancakes would be overcooked. She will probably forget about this as soon as Harry Potter comes on the TV. 2) I owe $50 to my housemate for groceries but actually I paid the electric bill and he didn't so maybe he owes me instead? 3) I have an $8000 balance on my credit card but can pay my minimum balance plus $500 extra every month with no sweat. 4) I have $500000 left on my mortgage and didn't make my last 5 payments... These are all still "debt" and have varying degrees of actionability. A word that implies a dimension does not need to specify the magnitude or severity on that dimension.