#TechForNewbies: Tech Debt
Technical Debt is a catchphrase often thrown around, essentially as a bit of a catchall for a few things you will one day need to resolve.
Tech Debt, as it is often shortened to, refers to the cost and legacy of poor past — or ongoing — technical decisions. The ‘debt’ part references the current and future costs of replacing something inefficient with something better — and these costs are not just financial, but also the time and effort which repairs and replacements will incur.
Tech Debt is often work which has been completed prioritising immediate results, or quick turnaround, without sufficient consideration of the long term impact of the approach, any inefficiencies, or any areas which have been built in such a way which will need redoing in order to grow or improve a service.
Sometimes a product of old technology, Tech Debt is more often the product of old ways of working, but it can simply be the result of pressures to aim for immediate small wins instead of building a solution well. It can be as small as ugly, repetitive code, or as large as a whole data platform or storage facility.
A famous example is that, when we hit the year 2000, a number of computer systems had not been built to handle 4-digit years — because until that point, the first two digits of a year had always been 19, and thus only the last two were important — e.g. by writing 24 you knew the year being referenced was 1924. Thus a huge re-engineering project must ensue. Other examples include a dependence on an out-dated tech stack, shortcuts in coding, or over-generous permissions and policies.
Tech Debt, as a concept, covers anything which has not been chosen or developed with future usefulness and usability in mind.
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To learn more about Tech Debt, read up here:
- Atlassian’s Escaping the Black Hole of Technical Debt
- Technical Debt & How to Manage It by Leanne Mitton at Splunk
- 5 Tips for Tackling Techical Debt by Mary Pratt, CIO.com
- The 4 Types of Tech Debt by Stepsize’s Michiel Mulders
- Tips to Improve IT Sustainability on ComputerWeekly.com
