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Show HN: Swimming in Tech Debt
This is the first half of my book, “Swimming in Tech Debt”. It is available at a pre-launch sale price of $0.99 (https://loufranco.com/tech-debt-book https://loufranco.com/tech-debt-book).
I have been working on it since January 2024. It is based on some posts in my blog, but expands on my ideas quite a bit.
In September 2024, excerpts appeared in Gergely Orosz’s Pragmatic Engineer newsletter, which helped me get a lot of feedback that expanded the book from my initial idea. This half is about what I expected to do before that —- the rest of the book goes into team and CTO practices.
- natch2 1y agoI don’t have time to write a more detailed review just yet, but given all the highly critical comments, I just wanted to put out there that I read quite a bit of this last night and thoroughly enjoyed it!
- loumf 1y agoThanks! I put up half the book so that only people that liked it would buy it. I am ok with it not being for everyone. I got about 70 sales overnight, so I am totally fine with some negative comments as well. Most are constructive. I am a little miffed that someone called it AI slop. I wrote every word (with professional editors helping). So, that hurts a little :)
- SoftTalker 1y agoAnymore, if the first thing I get when I visit a site is some kind of modal popup, I just close the tab. This shit has got to stop.
- loumf 1y agoI find helpthisbook.com to be helpful in getting comments on the book and sharing it. I'll send this feedback to them.
- dylanramsey 1y ago[dead]
- natch 1y agoSomeone has to mention Working Effectively With Legacy Code, by Michael Feathers, still a fantastic book. https://www.amazon.com/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Michael-Feathers/dp/0131177052 https://www.amazon.com/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Michael-Fe...
- loumf 1y agoLove that book. Also, "A Philosophy of Software Design" by John Ousterhout
- dugmartin 1y agoI haven't read the book but I've known Lou for probably 20 years and he is a very smart, very pragmatic software engineer who also happens to be a great guy. I look forward to when this is launched so I can buy a copy.
- loumf 1y agoThanks! You can buy it now for a buck. But, if you are waiting for print, that will be about a month later.
- giulianob 1y agoI read the first part and I enjoyed it. I agree that us developers aren't great at communicating tech debt effectively. Managers are also not great at prioritizing it. I think the "debt" analogy has been a net negative as management often thinks "we'll just pay it later" but don't often see how much pain it's causing. So having a resource to help both sides on this topic is very valuable.
- loumf 1y agoThanks. That’s my belief as well. I would have loved to come up with a better term. In the next two parts of the book I try to convince managers to give some autonomous time to engineers to do whatever tech debt projects they think is best. With some constraints and accountability.
- giulianob 1y agoI'm having this exact conversation with senior leadership in my team. I'm looking forward to it and I might do a book club reading when it comes out!
- timwis 1y agoAny chance you’re selling the ePub format directly, or via the Kobo store? I switched from Kindle to Kobo a few months back, when Amazon decided to remove everyone’s ability to download the books they’ve purchased. But I’d love to read this!
- loumf 1y agoMy priority is Kindle, then print. Then I will look into other formats. At that point I will have a PDF (that was used for Print) and an epub, so it will primarily be driven by interest. The best way to be notified by it is to be on my list at loufranco.com or reaching out to me.
- realaaa 1y agowill check out your blog ! cheers and good luck
- loumf 1y agoThanks. I hope it’s useful to you
- brudgers 1y agoCongratulations on writing a book and getting it out in the world. 1. It took me two tries to realize there is more than the table of contents and find the Unlabeled links on the left. Just make the text in the TOC clickable. 2. Maybe text navigation didn't work the first time because I did not select the correct option on the popup about interaction. This is a distraction from reading irrespective of what I picked. 3. Advice: make the reading experience work like readers expect. There are conventions. Trying to be clever doesn't benefit your readers...and will annoy at least one of them. 4. Nobody likes popups. Nobody. Nobody. Good luck.
- zachrip 1y agoThis is a website to get feedback about their book, your ux complaints are with "helpthisbook."
- brudgers 1y agoThe author is looking at this page. The author chose the format to present their work and posted the link. They own the problems associated with their book, are in a position to choose other options, and can benefit from the feedback. The website designers probably aren't looking at this page and even if they were, the problem is not as important to them as it is to the author.
- loumf 1y agoAgreed. I am pretty sure that they are going to look at it though. I am in close contact with them.
- loumf 1y agoI will give this feedback to the helpthisbook people. I am sure they will appreciate it.
- dylan604 1y agoI'm reading this in the same tone as when someone says "bless your heart"
- Sn0wCoder 1y agoThanks for the link. Its always helpful to have new ways to describe tech dept. The term is too overloaded and most people roll their eyes when hearing it since it can be used to describe anything from real issues to things that are fine but you just do not like for whatever reason. Look forward to reading the section on what issues are worth paying down and those that are fine to live with. Its not any easy decision to make, but having concrete examples is always a bonus. For .99 cents pre-ordered a copy and if there is going to be a real book would love to have it sitting on my desk. It could sit next to Software Estimation by Steve McConnell ;) Cheers!
- loumf 1y agoThere will be a print book about a month after the Kindle version launches. It takes time to get the formatted properly (using a contractor). It will be offered for the Amazon minimum price to start -- if you want a notification, sign up on my site: https://loufranco.com/tech-debt-book https://loufranco.com/tech-debt-book.
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- bee_rider 1y agoYou think it is the first half. You’ll realize later on that really you need a totally different structure to write the book. You’ll try to refactor the whole thing, but some obstinate subset of the original readers will insist on using the original index. In the interest of backwards compatibility, you’ll jam the new structure into the margins (so they can keep their precious index). It’s text-debt.
- loumf 1y agoI started writing the book in Obsidian, but realized I needed something a little better. So, I took it to Scrivener, which is where the first draft was completely developed (it can maintain references and a TOC somewhat). But once I needed editors, it had to be in Word and all of the references needed to be rebuilt when that was completed. It's now in a contractor's hands, using some book making software (not even sure which, I think an Adobe product). So, yeah.
- jcelerier 1y ago> You’ll try to refactor the whole thing, but some obstinate subset of the original readers will insist on using the original index and as always the answer is simple: "use the old version of the book or bite the bullet"
- xnx 1y agoThis is why I never make any drafts that I might have to change later. I always think of the entire book ahead of time without and type it out exactly without errors. /s
- jampa 1y agoAs someone who is also writing a book (for the first time), I hate how accurate this is. I wrote my first draft in 3 months, about 200 pages... Six months later, I haven't delivered a quarter of the book. And I will probably revisit those delivered chapters later.
- loumf 1y agoIf you are interested, my writing group is doing a free, 6-week (1-hour on Thursday) accountability group sprint. We spend most of the time writing (quick chat at the beginning and end) https://pages.usefulbooks.com/writing-sprint-2025 https://pages.usefulbooks.com/writing-sprint-2025
- withinrafael 1y agoThank you for writing down and sharing your experiences and insights, and making it accessible for just a mere buck.
- loumf 1y agoNo problem. I hope you find some useful tips in it.
- protocolture 1y agoDNR'ed pretty quickly. You seem to be writing about other concepts and just redefining them as tech debt. I left more detail in comments, but if I had purchased this book I would be seeking a refund, because I would be expecting a detailed exploration of technical debt, not just a focus on bad coding practice.
- loumf 1y agoThis is why I shared half the book. I will probably continue to do so for at least a few months (even after the book is launched). I am sharing a lot of the content of the next six chapters on my email list and will probably always have that archived for them. I really don't want people to buy it if they won't like it.
- protocolture 1y agoIts not really an issue of getting to read before I buy. Its very much that its advertised as something its not. You could do research into technical debt and bring other peoples anecdotes and experiences into the book and bring the content in line with the title and readers expectations. Or you could update the title and therefore manage expectations to ensure there are no misunderstandings.
- MomsAVoxell 1y agoYes, I too noped out after a few minutes read. Very distinct babblezone liturgy.
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- mdaniel 1y agoI'd recommend resubmitting as Show HN since this is your product and those submissions actually have their own dedicated URL. Plus, the way the title reads now is as if the submission was a blog you found
- loumf 1y agoI did submit as ShowHN. I don’t know how and when this got edited.
- viccis 1y agoThis whole thing reads as AI written and doesn't really talk about "tech debt" in any brass tacks way.
- loumf 1y agoIt was not AI written. I took 18 months to write it. I documented a lot of that on my blog in real time and in LinkedIn. I have posted several drafts of (hopefully) increasing quality publicly. I get that you might not like my writing, but it is mine.
- evrennetwork 1y ago[dead]
- willahmad 1y agoFirst of all, congratulations Honest question expecting your honest response. How much of it's written by AI? Recently, I noticed I am liking thoughts of real people over the super structured, emdash-y, zero grammar mistake AI texts. I want to support authors who share their experiences, rather than guiding AI to write thoughts
- loumf 1y agoI did not use AI to write this. I paid professional editors to help me get it polished. There were 4 rounds with 5 different people. I also got lots of grammar/typo comments using helpthisbook (hundreds of readers pointing out errors). I did (very rarely) take single sentences to ChatGPT and ask it for the correct way to punctuate it. I personally have always used em-dashes, perhaps incorrectly. I actually tried to learn the correct usage and stick to using it when appropriate. One of my goals in writing this book was to become a better writer, which I could only do (IMO) by writing and getting editors to help me.
- sublinear 1y agoThe chapter titles are too long, and the contents of each are too anecdotal. That means I can't find an interesting chapter, and just blindly picking one leaves me with a stream of consciousness to sort through. I don't get the sense that this is coherent enough to be the book or guide people expect. It really does feel like a collection of loose blog posts. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you change how this is presented. If you want to tell stories that's fine, but don't then organize this as if each chapter is a lesson. That's misleading because there's not enough conceptual meat on the bones there. Organize the chapters by the stories you want to tell, not by the concepts you hope the reader sees in them. Distilling and organizing the knowledge you think you have in your blog posts would mean an entire rewrite of this book and more careful analysis than just labeling each as its own chapter and adding a few sentences to fill gaps. The book people want would probably be 10% narrative and 90% instructional. This is 100% narrative in its current form.
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- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoI wish you luck, and you’ve picked a good subject. I once wrote a book (about 400 pages, after editing). No one read it, and rightly so. It covered a topic in a preachy, dictatorial manner. It’s long buried in a deep, unmarked grave, in the desert. It was accurate, well-written, well-structured, relevant, and useful, but assumed a tone that was pure poison. It was aimed at an audience that did not respond well to the tone. It was extremely valuable education for me, though. My mother was a scientific editor, and edited the book. It was brutal, and quite humbling, but her work ensured that the book was absolutely perfect. I don’t think I’ve ever shipped anything as close to [unpopular] perfection as that book. Even though I have never been particularly interested in writing book-length stuff, since then, I continue writing to this day[0]. Here’s the latest thing I did (released a few days ago)[1]. I don’t really write for others; I write for myself. Good luck. [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/ [1] https://littlegreenviper.com/series/passkeys/ https://littlegreenviper.com/series/passkeys/ [EDITED TO ADD] I typically get some downvotes, when I link to my postings. Long ago, I favorited a comment that I made, explaining this[2]. I don’t expect anyone to actually read it before hitting the down arrow, but I figured that I’d add it here, for elucidation. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860143
- loumf 1y agoI do wish HN had a culture of being ok with linking to supporting material on our own sites. I have been blogging for 20+ years -- some of those posts are relevant (and I think useful). I also mostly write for myself, but I want to get more of it out there because I think it's useful.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoI sincerely wish you luck. As I said, I think it's a timely topic. I didn't know helpthisbook existed. Interesting service. As you may have noticed, people are conflating the HTB stuff with your material, and HTB should keep that in mind. I have found that talking about improving software Quality is a deeply unpopular topic, on HN, and that kinda breaks my heart.
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- osmanthegreat 1y agoIt's a good topic and I am currently trying to manage lots of tech debt. So it caught my attention and I started to read, but it seems that you liked your swimming upstream allegory a little bit too much. Basically reading the same sentence several times in every chapter bored me and I quit...
- loumf 1y agoSorry to hear that. Fair.
- conartist6 1y agoThe swimming analogy is not a strong start. You disavow an obvious and strong analogy to monetary debt right away while dumping us into this strange metaphor that depends on us having an intuition for how you think and feel about swimming, and specifically swimming laps? Instead of setting the stakes high right off the bat you've lowered them and lost my attention with this wandering train of thought that has no clear relationship to the topic you wish to discuss...
- loumf 1y agoThanks for the feedback. The reason that I put up half the book and offered it for $1 to start was to make sure that people that didn't like it wouldn't buy it. I struggled with this opening and it definitely could have been better.
- conartist6 1y agoSorry, I'm a notoriously harsh critic. That probably comes from being homeschooled by two English major parents (a poet-professor and a journalist).
- loumf 1y agoNo worries at all. I really do appreciate constructive feedback. I put every draft of the book out there that I could, and this is my best version of making the book I wanted to make that resonated with at least some people. I totally get that it's not for everyone.
- volkk 1y agoI think people are being extreme pedants at best, disingenuous at worst. I think your analogy is clear, and the people that can't connect because they don't understand swimming is in the minority.
- conartist6 1y agoI'm reading a bit more now and you're realizing that your debts are real and cost something all the time so that you will have to pay them. Nothing about swimming explains why this might be, though monetary debt sure does.
- brianmcc 1y agoA total tangent but it's amazing how more palatable "tech enhancement" is in planning, management chats, etc., than anything involving the term "tech debt"
- cadr 1y agoCan you say more on your experience here? I've not heard people use that term before, and I'd be interested in how it received/what you think the difference is.
- brianmcc 1y agoSure, just that stories about "paying down tech debt" are an implicit admission of flaws and shortcuts and "doing it again because it wasn't done right initially". Which is all true but the concept of making deliberate trade offs for speed and expedience invariably gets lost. Stories about ongoing improvement - tech enhancement - just get seen as more positive. Plus that term covers both remediating original shortcut choices as well as new engineering improvements arising.
- cadr 1y agoThanks!
- sltr 1y agoI think tech risk is a better metaphor than tech debt. https://www.slater.dev/its-not-tech-debt-its-tech-risk/ https://www.slater.dev/its-not-tech-debt-its-tech-risk/