Podcast summary and Notes on "technical debt"

Hasty Treat - Technical Debt

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.

Prismic - Sponsor

Prismic is a Headless CMS that makes it easy to build website pages as a set of components. Break pages into sections of components using React, Vue, or whatever you like. Make corresponding Slices in Prismic. Start building pages dynamically in minutes. Get started at prismic.io/syntax.

Sentry - Sponsor

If you want to know what’s happening with your code, track errors and monitor performance with Sentry. Sentry’s Application Monitoring platform helps developers see performance issues, fix errors faster, and optimize their code health. Cut your time on error resolution from hours to minutes. It works with any language and integrates with dozens of other services. Syntax listeners new to Sentry can get two months for free by visiting Sentry.io and using the coupon code TASTYTREAT during sign up.

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Outdated or hard to update code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