If you’re not familiar with the term “technical debt”, it’s an analogy coined by Ward Cunningham[1], used to relay what happens when rather than following best practices and standards we take shortcuts on technical projects to have a quick fix. Debt occurs when we take on a long-term burden in order to gain something in the short term. I want to note that inevitably we will always take on some sort of debt, often unknowingly and usually while learning; the phrase “hindsight is 20/20” comes to mind, we see where we went wrong after the fact. There is also inherited technical debt, the bit that you can’t control. In all of my jobs, current and past, I’ve inherited technical debt, this is out of my control, it happens and I still need to learn how to deal with it. This piece aims to give some guidelines and bits I’ve learned…
Technical Debt: that escalated quickly
