Bad Code Isn’t Technical Debt, It’s an Unhedged Call Option

Re:Bad Code Isn’t Technical Debt, It’s an Unhedged Call Option by MarkBook on Friday July 23, 2010 @04:13PM (#1542285)

I think technical debt is a much better metaphor than the unhedged call option one. That's unnecessarily complex and worse, it's less accurate. The downside isn't unlimited as he suggests, there is a well defined limit, 0 sales.

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Re:Bad Code Isn’t Technical Debt, It’s an Unhedged Call Option by jcl on Friday July 23, 2010 @05:20PM (#1542442)

I think the unhedged call is a better metaphor. The stuff you gain by writing sloppy code is not sales but saved development time. The potential downside is the development time spent debugging or updating the system.

The lost development time is bounded by the cost of reimplementing the system correctly, which is theoretically infinite (assuming a non-zero chance of error each time you reimplement it). But in practical terms it is merely expensive -- potentially more expensive than you can afford -- just like the financial case.

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Re:Bad Code Isn’t Technical Debt, It’s an Unhedged Call Option by bmm6o on Friday July 23, 2010 @09:14PM (#1542838)

Regardless of which metaphor is a more accurate translation, "technical debt" is much more accessible. If you have to explain your turn of phrase, it's not going to catch on.

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Re:Bad Code Isn’t Technical Debt, It’s an Unhedged Call Option by byrneseyeview on Friday July 23, 2010 @05:20PM (#1542444)

A naked put works better.

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