Technical debt

Shortcuts in code and design that speed up delivery now and make every later change slower until they are paid back.

Some debt is a good deal: a prototype that proves demand is worth more than clean code nobody needs. It turns bad when the interest grows: every feature takes longer, bugs return, nobody dares to touch a module. A legacy system is often just old debt plus missing knowledge. The fix is rarely a rewrite; it is paying down the parts that slow the work you actually do.

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Related terms

Strangler fig pattern: Replacing a legacy system piece by piece, routing one feature at a time to new code until the old system can be switched off.
Vibe coding: Building by prompting and accepting the result without reading the code closely.
Software takeover (handover): Moving an existing app to a new developer or team: access, code, infrastructure and the knowledge in people’s heads.

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Przemysław Zalewski · 15+ years shipping software

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