Comments on: FlexDev In Action http://blog.qualityaspect.com/2006/09/20/flexdev-in-action/ Lidor Wyssocky's Blog on Optimizing Software Development Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:37:35 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.2 Comment on FlexDev In Action by: Lidor Wyssocky http://blog.qualityaspect.com/2006/09/20/flexdev-in-action/#comment-1887 Thu, 21 Sep 2006 06:15:51 +0000 http://blog.qualityaspect.com/2006/09/20/flexdev-in-action/#comment-1887 That's a good comment, Tom. The financial metaphor actually demonstrates very vividly why not paying the debt eventually is a bad idea. Hopefully, organization leaders will realize that... unless, of course, they manage their financial affairs in the same spirit. Lidor That’s a good comment, Tom.

The financial metaphor actually demonstrates very vividly why not paying the debt eventually is a bad idea. Hopefully, organization leaders will realize that… unless, of course, they manage their financial affairs in the same spirit.

Lidor

]]> Comment on FlexDev In Action by: Tom Harris http://blog.qualityaspect.com/2006/09/20/flexdev-in-action/#comment-1886 Thu, 21 Sep 2006 06:04:48 +0000 http://blog.qualityaspect.com/2006/09/20/flexdev-in-action/#comment-1886 The idea of taking short-term debt as a measured risk is common in finance -- here it is in software development. The example, though, is producing a demo. Not a very broad example -- many development organizations make different rules for demos and experiments than they do for production development. Shore's example would look a bit better if he had told us about it after they had recovered and paid back all the debt -- cleaned up all the bugs and restored a full unit test suite, rather than just leaving us at "taken ... a month so far and ... quite a bit left to do." In addition, Shore has the luxury of running his organization, so he makes the decision on when to pay back the technical debt. Many readers work in organizations where their environment makes them take the debt but never lets them pay it back. E.g. write something as a demo but then deliver and maintain it in production without slowing down to complete the unit tests they left behind. Maybe a future post should be about overdraft. The idea of taking short-term debt as a measured risk is common in finance — here it is in software development. The example, though, is producing a demo. Not a very broad example — many development organizations make different rules for demos and experiments than they do for production development.

Shore’s example would look a bit better if he had told us about it after they had recovered and paid back all the debt — cleaned up all the bugs and restored a full unit test suite, rather than just leaving us at “taken … a month so far and … quite a bit left to do.”

In addition, Shore has the luxury of running his organization, so he makes the decision on when to pay back the technical debt. Many readers work in organizations where their environment makes them take the debt but never lets them pay it back. E.g. write something as a demo but then deliver and maintain it in production without slowing down to complete the unit tests they left behind.

Maybe a future post should be about overdraft.

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