Learnings from 5 years of tech startup code audits

Re:Learnings from 5 years of tech startup code audits by phphphphp on Thursday May 26, 2022 @10:35AM (#31518825)

I really struggle with the analogy of technical debt as equivalent to financial debt. The analogy works great in theory, but it doesn't translate to the real world. The technical decisions we make today will influence the decisions we make tomorrow, and the decisions we make tomorrow will influence the decisions we make next week... and so the system we have a year from now will be layers and layers of deeply interwoven technical debt that you can't just have your accountant pay off at the click of a button.

If we're married to the financial debt analogy, then technical debt has compounding interest like a payday loan... and payday loans are typically used in very distressed circumstances, and are very dangerous. There's appropriate times to take a payday loan, and there's appropriate times to take on technical debt, but it has to be handled with great care and be an immediate wake up call to address the underlying cause.

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Re:Learnings from 5 years of tech startup code audits by letitbeirie on Thursday May 26, 2022 @11:49AM (#31519834)

Some tech debt behaves like a payday loan with usurious compounding interest.

The more insidious kind behaves more like a completely unhedged call option - fine, until it very suddenly isn't.

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Re:Learnings from 5 years of tech startup code audits by goto11 on Thursday May 26, 2022 @10:46AM (#31518978)

Yeah, compounding interest is part of the metaphor. As long as you grow faster than the compounding interests, you are good. If the options for a startup is the keep growing or die, then taking on technical debt is reasonable.

Of course it is different for a steady-state company or organization. You need to keep technical dept at a manageable level.

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