Andy Lester: Get Out of Technical Debt Now

Andy Lester talks about how to get out of technical debt. He starts with identifying what it is:

• Clutter
• Failing tests
• Unfixed bugs
• Fragile, ugly code
• Code without comments, code with outdated comments
• Bus-sensitive knowledge
• Unpatched security holes
• Missing infrastructure
• Relying on non-open-source software
• Jerks on the team
• Jerks in management
• No coding standards
• Code ownership
• Not realizing you have technical debt

An important he makes is that you shouldo think about these debts in terms of time and dollars. This allows you to quanitify them and sell paying the debts down to your boss.

Monday, February 13, 2012