In the active world of software creation, the term 'Technical Debt' pops up quite often. But what is it really? Technical debt is like a loan taken against future efforts due to shortcuts or quick decisions made today in software development. These small choices can lead to bigger, costlier problems down the road.
Some numbers paint a clear picture; it’s said that fixing a mistake after a product is launched can be 100 times costlier than during the making phase. Also, it's guessed that software companies spend about $3 of every $10 to fix technical debt issues, which is quite a lot!
The money drain of technical debt is felt strongly when we see it through the lens of bugs and the time spent fixing them or adding new features. It’s not just about money; it’s about the drag on being quick and creative.
To avoid this financial mess, here are some steps:
- Bug Metrics: Track the number and origin of bugs that come up after releases. It tells you about the code's health.
- Early Testing: Start automated testing early in the project to catch issues before they grow big.
- Zero Bug Policy: Fix bugs fast! A growing backlog is where technical debt grows.
- Implementation Time: Watch the time it takes to bring in new features or changes - a sudden increase may signal growing technical debt.
- Embrace Refactoring: An gram of prevention is worth a kilogram of cure. Regular refactoring keeps the codebase clean and manageable.
- Agile Way: Adopt agile ways that promote step-by-step development and anticipate changes.
- Code Reviews Build a habit of detailed peer code reviews focusing more on the architecture rather than just code style.
- Sharing Knowledge: Encourage cross-team knowledge sharing to prevent siloed understanding, which could lead to inconsistent code quality.
If technical debt has already piled up, don’t worry. Here’s a roadmap to redemption:
- Act Early: Address technical debt early; it will cost less.
- Modular Refactoring: Begin by refactoring code to be more modular and abstract. Tackle the core layers before moving up to individual modules and features.
- Process Check: Review and tweak your development processes to include the steps mentioned above.
- Debt Listing: Keep a clear record of existing technical debt to know what needs fixing first.
- Debt Reduction Time: Set aside time in each project phase specifically to reduce technical debt.
- Team Understanding: Make sure the whole team knows about the downsides of technical debt and the importance of reducing it.
- Stronger QA: Enhance QA processes to manage the increasing load of changes during refactoring.
- Code Ownership: Foster a sense of code ownership among developers to encourage accountability and a quality-first approach.
- Seek External Expertise: Don’t hesitate to bring in external expertise for an objective assessment of technical debt and recommendations for remediation.
By embracing this roadmap, you're not just tackling the existing technical debt, but also setting up a robust framework to minimize such debt in the future. It’s about shifting gears from reactive to proactive management. It’s a step towards building software that is not just functional today, but remains adaptable and maintainable.
Software Architect, Golang developer, Solving complex problems in simple ways
1 年Good list Matthias Isler , but usualy tech debts appear, from my hands on experience, from a fatal mix of company wanting to be on the market asap and having inexperienced people driving these: managers, devs and C-level alike. You know how many times i saw todos like "Improve this" or "this should be moved elsewere"? When I asked what about, I was asked not to bother, is for later...whatever "later" means. As you correctly mentioned tech debt is a loan, and like a loan, you might end up in bankruptcy. In software this means you cannot add anymore code period. At this point many company leaders don't know what to do.