In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about technical debt — what it is, why does it occur, and some techniques for reducing and avoiding it.
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Show Notes
03:17 - What is technical debt
- Outdated or hard to update code
- If you groan when you have to work on it, it might be a sign of technical debt
- Brittle code, easily breakable
- Quirks and features
06:55 - Why does it occur
- Over time, any garden left un-pruned will become overgrown
- Many people, many code styles
- Using hot new frameworks / techniques
- This is why seasoned developers don’t jump on new things
- You allow users to do literally anything
13:18 - Techniques for avoiding it
- Deny your FOMO of new things
- Abstract
- Write good tests
- Don’t put off refactors
- Update dependencies frequently
- Good standards
- Etsy has thousands of devs
20:08 - Examples in the real world
- Airline websites open in new windows all the time
- Cellphone carrier flashes the screen 100x
22:15 - Unfixable technical debt
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