Refactoring Podcast Technical Debt as Crime Scene 🔍 — with Adam Tornhill
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Aug 29, 2025 
Adam Tornhill, author of 'Your Code as a Crime Scene' and founder of Code Scene, delves into the forensic analysis of technical debt. He draws fascinating parallels between code and crime scenes, emphasizing the importance of version control history to pinpoint 'hotspots' in code. Tornhill also discusses the bus factor, highlighting the risks of dependency on key developers. Additionally, he explores how AI can assist in coding while stressing the need for structured practices to enhance code health and reduce technical debt.
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Studied Psychology To Understand Software Failures
- Adam studied psychology after noticing large-scale software failures and lack of answers inside tech.
- He applied forensic psychology patterns to code, inspiring 'Your Code as a Crime Scene' and CodeScene.
Crime-Scene Metaphor Inspired Hotspots
- Adam compared geographical offender profiling to spotting code hotspots on a map of a codebase.
- He used crime-scene hotspot analysis as the metaphor that birthed his tooling approach.
History Reveals What Static Analysis Misses
- A static snapshot of code misses impact and relevance that version control reveals.
- Hotspots (2–4% of files) concentrate most development and therefore most urgent technical debt.
