In hindsight Ward’s choice of the word “debt” may not have been the right one. It feels more like “legacy code”, in that there was nothing wrong with it at the

In hindsight Ward’s choice of the word “debt” may not have been the right one. It feels more like “legacy code”, in that there was nothing wrong with it at the time. Its impact on newer parts of the system is to create a “legacy burden”. Of course if there was something wrong with the code at the time then it’s more of a “proficiency debt” (or burden) where the shortcut taken was not in the coding but in not reading the docs and practicing the craft.