My thoughts about Tech Debt

🚨 Tech Debt is Real! 🚨

Just a friendly reminder for all developers: Technical debt isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a reality we all deal with.

I love how Ward Cunningham framed it back in 1992 at the OOPSLA ’92 Conference on Object-Oriented Programming Systems, Languages, and Applications:

Shipping first-time code is like going into debt. A little debt speeds development as long as it is paid back promptly with refactoring. The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid. Every minute spent on code that is not quite right for the programming task of the moment counts as interest on that debt. Entire engineering organizations can be brought to a standstill under the debt load of an unfactored implementation, object-oriented or otherwise.

This analogy is more relevant than ever. Taking shortcuts in development can accelerate progress in the short term, but if left unaddressed, the accumulating interest will eventually slow down entire teams, making future changes costly and painful.

So, what can we do?

• Recognize tech debt early.

• Allocate time for refactoring.

• Advocate for clean, maintainable code.

• Balance speed with sustainability.

A little debt might be unavoidable, but responsible management ensures it never spirals out of control. Keep coding smart! 🚀

Art by https://vincentdnl.com/en/drawings