Technical Debt

2nd March 2009

It seems particularly relevant during this credit crunch to be talking about Technical Debt – the debt you owe when implementing a solution in a quick and dirty way, which accrues interest every time you need to alter or add to the code, and can be paid off by taking time to refactor the code.

The metaphor is particularly useful when trying to balance the desire to create maintainable code with business demands for quick results. Incurring the debt may be a sensible, strategic business decision, but one should always plan on paying off the debt later, and how much later affects the interest payments accrued in the meantime.

Tags: Best practice