Technical Debt with Cats: Lots of Cats

October 29, 2020

Cats are fine. Lots of cats can trigger a different reaction. I liked “Technical Debt: Why It’ll Ruin Your Software.” I ignored the cats and focused on the information payload of the article. The author does a good job of explaining what a number of people [a] ignore, [b] do not understand, and [c] miss the connection with cost and time over-runs.,

I circled three items in the write up:

First, I circled this passage:

The moment John chose the faster and easiest solution for him was the moment that the Technical Debt was inserted in the code.

The idea is that in order to “get ‘er done,” the Corona virus of cost, complexity, and chaos was let loose. The “faster and easiest” method is everywhere. Like a person with an addiction the individual will not admit, there is no single step toward remediation. The remediators will use the same method.

Second, I noted this diagram:

image

The chart makes clear what people under pressure often ignore. Costs are rising, and they may not be controllable. How much change has the core of Google search undergone in the last 20 years. Who wants to dig into the guts and deal with some of the interesting problems which exist? Answer: No one who wants a promotion and a chance to start a VC firm.

Third, the future is smart software:

In a realistic and respectable world, machines should take care of these situations, and not us.

Yep, and software will be just wonderful.

Stephen E Arnold, October 29, 2020

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