2 ms·

Tech "debt" is paid back in the form of later refactors and having to go back and fix the things you did badly in the interest of expedience. It's just a metap

• 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
  Junk food certainly gets you fed faster, and tastes more pleasurable, than cooking a nutritious meal yourself. It gives you what you want in the short term. It can kill you in the long term. Nobody has to pay back the "debt" of junk food, nothing is forcing it. Just like nothing is forcing the "paying back" of "debt" of bad software. In either case, people just get along with junk, until suddenly they have a huge problem, and realize they are now forced to get their act together. But it's often too late, and now they have much bigger problems to deal with, and few options. Again, debt does not work like that. If it was tech "debt", 1) someone would have to approve your loan, based on some kind of evidence that you could or would actually pay it back; 2) there would be a mandatory time-frame for paying it back; and 3) if you didn't pay it back, they would literally take your stuff from you. None of that happens with 'tech debt'; there's nothing forcing 'paying it back', nor any idea of how much you 'owe' or what to pay it with. The end result is people just avoid 'paying the tech debt' until a big guy named Louie shows up with a baseball bat, and now he wants 50% interest, and you don't have that kinda money. It's not debt. It's tech junk food.