In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about technical debt — what it is, why does it occur, and some techniques for reducing and avoiding it.

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Show Notes

03:17 - What is technical debt

• Outdated or hard to update code
• If you groan when you have to work on it, it might be a sign of technical debt
• Brittle code, easily breakable
• Quirks and features

06:55 - Why does it occur

• Over time, any garden left un-pruned will become overgrown
• Many people, many code styles
• Using hot new frameworks / techniques
  • This is why seasoned developers don’t jump on new things
• You allow users to do literally anything

13:18 - Techniques for avoiding it

• Deny your FOMO of new things
• Abstract
• Write good tests
• Don’t put off refactors
• Update dependencies frequently
• Good standards
  • Etsy has thousands of devs

20:08 - Examples in the real world

• Airline websites open in new windows all the time
• Cellphone carrier flashes the screen 100x

22:15 - Unfixable technical debt

• Agency work sometimes

Links

• Next
• React Router
• TailwindCSS
• Redux
• Etsy
• Dave Ramsey

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