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What is the solution to this?
Generally? Other than the digital tech revolution slowing down rather than exponentially expanding, there is none.
Well AI and automated coding solutions will get better…
No. Mitigating technical debt requires understanding and insight. It's not about bugs. Most things labelled "technical debt" are entirely functional, just not a solution you want to have to live with long term.
Technical debt is not a bad thing in itself; the metaphor is useful because financial debt is something that people and companies thrive on, as long as it's acknowledged, logged and managed. Financial debt is bad when people hide it and/or don't keep it in check. Technical debt the same. The software/IT world has such a bad problem with unmanaged technical debt mostly because of the pressures I mentioned above, partly because most people (and managers) don't have the same basic understanding of tech that they do of their account balance. It's not hard to get people to see the shakey step ladder problem when you're actually talking about building a house. Trying to get them to see the real software engineering equivalents, and why they'll be a problem in the long term, is hard.
itsbruce-
I’m not a software engineer, but…
If the issue is ‘10 years ago we bodged something, now our whole system rests on it, but we can’t fix it because it costs too much’
Surely that cost is only gonna come down? Certainly in terms of time required.
Obviously AI isn’t a one click fix, but whether it’s finding the issues, fixing them, or testing them, it’s gonna speed it up?
steelspeed
What is the solution to this? Good architecture from the outset? Being honest about the true cost? Shooting anyone who uses mvp?