2 ms·

The name "tech debt" has always been a bit of a misnomer. Financial debt does come with interest, but it's structured, proportionate, and you can just go pay it

by strken 2y ago

The name "tech debt" has always been a bit of a misnomer. Financial debt does come with interest, but it's structured, proportionate, and you can just go pay it off with sufficient money. Tech debt is unpredictable, needs a lot of context to comprehend, needs even more to fix, is subject to the mythical man month, and taints everything else it touches in your product. It can be worth accepting such a structural flaw into your product, for a time, but it's certainly not like asking for an extension of credit. It's a struggle to come up with a better name, though.

delusional 2y ago
It's an incredible share that we've accepted the "technical debt" metaphor so deeply into our vocabulary that we can't discuss the practical problem without devolving into interpreting the metaphor. The practical definition is clear. It's a lack of maintenence of core abstraction. Leftovers from different designs, deeply embedded into our solution. Sometimes we plan for it to live in a corner somewhere, but more often we discover the failure of some abstraction all too late. It doesn't work like debt at all. We didn't sign a termsheet, and we didn't calculate the impact. We need to move beyond this hopeless metaphor such that we can actually discuss what software needs, because right we're staring at a field emptied of nitrogen by years of farming and saying it has a "resource debt"
- lloeki 2y ago
  > We didn't sign a termsheet, and we didn't calculate the impact. Which is very much like going to the bank and trusting it that it's going to be ok without looking at numbers; or going to a mob shark for a loan, but it's actually Darth Vader and he'll make sure to alter the deal any way he sees fit. Evaluating what tech debt is going to cost (through coupling and accidental complexity) is definitely part of the job. That responsible engineers yelling it's going to cost a lot are then ignored is part of the systemic cultural problem.
singleshot_ 2y ago
I don’t think I’d agree that financial debt is by definition structured given the concept known as “unstructured debt.”
superice 2y ago
Tech debt is more like being in debt to violent mobsters, who will show up at your house unannounced at the most inconvenient of times, during which they will hit you with a wrench until you pay whatever is in your wallet right now. They will return soon enough, because whatever payment you just made on the spot is never quite enough to settle the debt.

by strken 2y ago

delusional 2y ago

It's an incredible share that we've accepted the "technical debt" metaphor so deeply into our vocabulary that we can't discuss the practical problem without devolving into interpreting the metaphor. The practical definition is clear. It's a lack of maintenence of core abstraction. Leftovers from different designs, deeply embedded into our solution. Sometimes we plan for it to live in a corner somewhere, but more often we discover the failure of some abstraction all too late. It doesn't work like debt at all. We didn't sign a termsheet, and we didn't calculate the impact. We need to move beyond this hopeless metaphor such that we can actually discuss what software needs, because right we're staring at a field emptied of nitrogen by years of farming and saying it has a "resource debt"

lloeki 2y ago
> We didn't sign a termsheet, and we didn't calculate the impact. Which is very much like going to the bank and trusting it that it's going to be ok without looking at numbers; or going to a mob shark for a loan, but it's actually Darth Vader and he'll make sure to alter the deal any way he sees fit. Evaluating what tech debt is going to cost (through coupling and accidental complexity) is definitely part of the job. That responsible engineers yelling it's going to cost a lot are then ignored is part of the systemic cultural problem.

singleshot_ 2y ago

I don’t think I’d agree that financial debt is by definition structured given the concept known as “unstructured debt.”

superice 2y ago

Tech debt is more like being in debt to violent mobsters, who will show up at your house unannounced at the most inconvenient of times, during which they will hit you with a wrench until you pay whatever is in your wallet right now. They will return soon enough, because whatever payment you just made on the spot is never quite enough to settle the debt.