The Power of Technical Debt

blog.ircmaxell.com

54 pointsircmaxell5 comments

I've never like the following expression.

"If you don't have enough time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"

It always seemed to me that an answer of "later" is potentially completely valid.

The idea is to not always say "we'll do it later". "Later" works fine as long as the various decision-makers involved can be talked into doing it later. If their answer is always "if it works, don't touch it," then they are the target audience for that old saw.

Well here's another expression I like "Nothing is ever more permanent than a temporary fix."

I think it's valid to take on Technical Debt, but only when it's been explicitly decided that there's a good reason to take on technical debt. It's when you make a habit of always taking the quick and dirty approach and never take the time to refactor that you start running into problems.

I don't think its possible to avoid technical debt if you are making something new on a deadline.

Just like real companies, bootstrapping sounds like the ideal situation but it's not the reality for most people.

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