Technical debt is a metaphor for the eventual consequences of poor software architecture and software development within a codebase.
2
votes
1answer
117 views
Agile: When to re-factor and when to extend while accruing technical debt? [duplicate]
Consider the following scenario.
You currently have a feature set A you wish to extend to include feature set B. In the near feature there's a high possibility that you wish to extend this even ...
8
votes
2answers
398 views
How to deal with too much pragmatism in the project?
My team and I took over a medium sized codebase over a year ago when the previous tech lead left the company. Originating from the lack of man power I fear we favored pragmatic solutions over best ...
11
votes
8answers
960 views
Should I try to persuade my manager that code tidying should take priority over meeting deadlines? [duplicate]
My manager has tight deadlines to meet.
The current project I am working on is currently on schedule, but I've noticed a couple of quite significant areas in the code that are really badly written. ...
8
votes
2answers
419 views
How is technical debt best measured? What metric(s) are most useful? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How can I quantify the amount of technical debt that exists in a project?
If I wanted to help a customer understand the degree of technical debt in his application, what ...
3
votes
6answers
656 views
What to do when you inherit an unmaintainable codebase? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Techniques to re-factor garbage and maintain sanity?
I've inherited 200K lines of spaghetti code — what now?
I'm currently working at a company with 2 other ...
19
votes
6answers
1k views
How do “custom software companies” deal with technical debt?
What are "custom software companies"?
By "custom software companies" I mean companies that make their money primarily from building custom, one off, bits of software. Example are agencies or ...
7
votes
3answers
347 views
Agile estimation with tech-debt
When estimating (story points) a story that consists on extending a current functionality with a known tech-debt, should we consider the effort that will be spent to refactor the current code or ...
30
votes
10answers
2k views
How can I quantify the amount of technical debt that exists in a project?
Does anyone know if there is some kind of tool to put a number on technical debt of a code base, as a kind of code metric? If not, is anyone aware of an algorithm or set of heuristics for it?
If ...
76
votes
19answers
3k views
Dealing with management that does not see value in improvements that are not immediately visible to the user
I can understand schedule pressure. You want to please your users, as they are the lifeblood of the company. However, it is also true that certain changes will make everything easier down the road. ...
3
votes
1answer
189 views
Seperating business logic and layout in a highly interlocked project
My company is developing software that has a lot of technical debt that has existed for more than 20 years. It's a mix of C++ and C and consists of about 2M LOC. I would like to make some suggestions ...
28
votes
12answers
1k views
Develop fast and buggy, then correct errors or be slow, careful for each line of code? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicates:
Frankly, do you prefer Cowboy coding?
Prototyping vs. Clean Code at the early stages
Good design: How much hackyness is acceptable?
Does craftsmanship pay off?
...
10
votes
3answers
527 views
What is the best/ethical way to estimate code clean-up?
I have been working on a product line since my senior year of college for my current employer. Now several years out of college I am in a position where I am giving estimates for change requests on ...
86
votes
16answers
2k views
Does craftsmanship pay off? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicates:
Prototyping vs. Clean Code at the early stages
Frankly, do you prefer Cowboy coding?
After working in a number of companies, I am starting to realize that my ...
18
votes
6answers
645 views
Is there any hope for writing good code atop a horribly designed database?
Here's my predicament. One of several programs I've recently inherited is built with a horrible database on the backend. The esteemed creators of it apparently did not appreciate relational concepts. ...
12
votes
5answers
687 views
Should technical debt be scheduled as a feature or a chore (or a bug)?
I've added a couple of user stories that address some technical debt to my Pivotal Tracker board. Should I consider them as features (keeping my velocity level) or as chores/bugs (lowering my ...
11
votes
10answers
946 views
Sucking Less Every Year?
Sucking Less Every Year -Jeff Atwood
I had come across this insightful article.Quoting directly from the post
I've often thought that sucking less
every year is how humble programmers
...
59
votes
13answers
3k views
How can I convince management to deal with technical debt?
This is a question that I often ask myself when working with developers. I've worked at four companies so far and I've become aware of a lack of attention to keeping code clean and dealing with ...
12
votes
6answers
376 views
How to get out of the support rut and start repaying the technical debt!
I have a "friend". Yes good start I know but honestly this isn't me!
Basically he's been working on a successful project for about 4 years now, the difficulty is the technical debt has caught up and ...
25
votes
6answers
653 views
What payoffs have you seen from taking care of technical debt?
This article on technical debt has some good points, including:
Working on the "technical matters" works best when it is driven by stories. The code base is probably in need of work everywhere, ...
13
votes
9answers
963 views
In the Aggregate: How Will We Maintain Legacy Systems? [closed]
NEW YORK - With a blast that made
skyscrapers tremble, an 83-year-old
steam pipe sent a powerful message
that the miles of tubes, wires and
iron beneath New York and other U.S.
cities are ...
