3 ms·
The problem is that all business incentives are based on short-term outcomes. Sometimes there is a culture of being deliberate about tech-debt but that culture
by siliconc0w 3y ago
The problem is that all business incentives are based on short-term outcomes. Sometimes there is a culture of being deliberate about tech-debt but that culture eventually gets eroded by the MBA/bean counters, poor hiring, or scaling too fast. The end result is you end up pouring ever increasing amounts into engineering for smaller and smaller deltas of change. Eventually to the point it can become 'terminal' where you literally cannot change the system in one place without breaking it in another. At that point you just sell the company if you can to some PE firm that will load it up with debt, loot it, and dump the corpse to decompose in the nearest body of water.
- nuc1e0n 3y agoTech debt isn't always a bad thing if it is managed properly. Developing for the short term can help a company to succeed in the market until a better solution can be produced, where more careful work may have prevented the survival of the company. The problem comes when technical debt is never paid off and continually accumulates, even when it's not necessary for it to.
- Supermancho 3y agoTech debt that fails fast or allows the company runway to fund a better design down the road, is a market advantage. Short term thinking is more effective, which is why it's so common. Skip some considerations to figure out the specific target audience or functionality sooner. I don't think the name fits at all. It's tech centric, which is self serving of the tech community, by the tech community.