What technical debt is and isn't
On This Lesson 4 topics
This lesson is planned. The outline below lists the topics it will cover. The full lesson has not been published yet.
In this lesson
use the debt metaphor precisely and classify debt.
Planned topics
- Technical debt: a design or implementation shortcut, or a gap, that makes future change costlier; the "interest" is the extra cost each time you touch it.
- Quadrants: deliberate or inadvertent, prudent or reckless. Deliberate and prudent ("ship now, fix next sprint, knowing the cost") is a valid choice.
- Not debt: bugs, missing features, or code you simply dislike.
- Debt with no interest (code nobody changes) can be left alone.
Draft outline details
Demonstration
A 2×2 with an example in each cell from the Shop Platform: deliberate-prudent a manual reconciliation step before launch; inadvertent-prudent a design that was good until volume grew; deliberate-reckless skipping tests; inadvertent-reckless copy-pasted payment logic unaware of consequences.
Check your understanding
Why is code nobody changes low-priority debt?
Show answer
It pays no interest, since no change work is slowed down.
Practice
Apply this lesson with the module's lab, exercises and quiz.
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