Jan 10, 2017

Understanding Technical Debt And All Its Types

Understanding technical debt in detail is necessary to deal with it to survive and prevent early death and choking off your company. Tech debt is the accumulation of your compromises that you made to produce a code during the development process. The reason for such compromise can be varied from lack of proper knowledge to constant pressure to meet the time deadline. When such compromise is made it is useless to say that the code produced would be full of defects, probably in every line of it, and contribute to the accumulation of technical debt. It is then when you need to address it and keep it working.

Consequence Of Tech Debt

The consequence of such tech debt is felt when you have to rework on them and make necessary changes, sometimes having to rebuild a whole new code all over again. This problem varies according to the degree of the tech debt and is felt each time you rewrite the code. Also, a considerable time elapses before you come to know the consequence and impact that a faulty code has on other codes, users, and the overall functionality. Sometimes, when you ignore tech debt for a long time, it may even lead to early death of your software engineering and development company. You may know that there are different types of tech debts and all of these are not equal, and the consequence also differs according to the type.

  Reckless Tech Debt 

This type of tech debt is the result of compromises made on code intentionally and not caring about the future consequences. This can be compared with taking out a credit card and use it to the maximum without caring for the resources to pay it back or have any intention to do so either. Slowly these unpaid amounts accumulate along with interest, overdue charges and other penal charges and then a time comes when you find yourself trapped in the black hole of debt. To avoid such a situation, you must have a strategic plan for payment, budget your expenses and sacrifice a bit to clear your debt.

  The Prudent Tech Debt 

Prudent Tech debts are those compromises which are made deliberately with an eye on the benefits you would want to have in the future. These debts are just like those financial debts which you take with an intention to invest in something which you believe would pay off in the future. The same is with such tech debts which are considered a virtue and which are exemplified with mindfulness and careful thought about the future. It is like making a seemingly irrelevant investment which would be fruitful in the future.

  Some Other Debts

Apart from the above you also have deliberate and inadvertent tech debts. Deliberate debts are created for reasons like limitations in budgets, deadlines in time and also cases where situations are out of control. Inadvertent debts are the result of your lack of knowledge while you design a code. You can click here to know more about such tech debts and its effects.