Re:Musings on Tech Debt (2020)
by dgb23 on Sunday July 04, 2021 @08:38AM
(#27729198)
It's less of an analogy on financial debt than it is just using the word more generally as in "I'm forever in your debt!" or "You owe me!". It is not always a financial statement.
The implication is that something needs to be repaid (again, generally speaking) later because a short term solution is being implemented now.
I think the reason the term "technical debt" has become popular, is because it speaks in the lingo of decision makers. The implication of "debt" is better understood than the specific technical and design issues we want to resolve.
Similarly "BigData" is more tangible for non-technical people than any of the more specific distributed storage and intelligence solutions. They don't and shouldn't care about the details, but they should understand that the undertaking is "big", as in requiring and providing a lot of resources.
Maybe a better analogy could be found by looking at the lingo of logistics, or any other field where continuously keeping things in order and re-ordering them is paramount.
The implication is that something needs to be repaid (again, generally speaking) later because a short term solution is being implemented now.
I think the reason the term "technical debt" has become popular, is because it speaks in the lingo of decision makers. The implication of "debt" is better understood than the specific technical and design issues we want to resolve.
Similarly "BigData" is more tangible for non-technical people than any of the more specific distributed storage and intelligence solutions. They don't and shouldn't care about the details, but they should understand that the undertaking is "big", as in requiring and providing a lot of resources.
Maybe a better analogy could be found by looking at the lingo of logistics, or any other field where continuously keeping things in order and re-ordering them is paramount.