On: Technical Debt Doesn’t Exist

[user5994461]

> You “repay” the technical debt by fixing stuff that causes problems

Well, that sounds a lot like maintenance.

[lucideer → user5994461]

As the GP said:

> The metaphor isn’t perfect

But there's a difference between maintenance that fixes problems expediently and maintenance that fixes problems more permanently. The technical debt metaphor is an attempt to model the cons of doing the former too often (otherwise faster always seems better).

[hajile → user5994461]

Maintenance of good code is very different than going in and fixing a bunch of TODOs so the thing won't break outside the happy path.

[sixstringtheory → user5994461]

Maintenance is the repayment, not the debt itself.