#technical debt

[askagamedev]

Why do temporary solutions end up being so foundational in a lot of games?

It has to do with how software engineering works. Whenever we build a system, that system doesn't typically exist in a vacuum - temporary or not, it exists to handle some particular task or solve some problem. A temporary solution might not handle that task or problem optimally, but it works well enough that the system can function within the greater context of all of the other systems that use it to handle their own tasks/problems.

If enough other systems are built on top of the temporary solution, that temporary solution becomes load bearing - removing that temporary solution will cause everything built upon it to break. Any attempt at replacing the temporary solution needs not only to replace the solution itself, but also needs to ensure that every system built on top of it still functions properly. Software development tends to be this constant layering of system upon system upon system as the game comes together. This generally means that the longer it takes to replace a temporary solution, the more difficult and expensive it becomes to do so. We call this cost [technical debt].

Since games must eventually ship, team leadership must make judgement calls on what debt we fully pay off and what debt we just pay the maintenance cost on. That determination is often determined by how much effort it takes to fix the problem properly and how much dev time we have left. Fixing tech debt is often mostly invisible to the players and we need to weigh those costs against having the developers work on new features or content instead. The temporary solutions work, they just don't work very well. Improvements in performance or workflow may not translate directly to value-add for the player.

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[sachhsoft]

Managing Technical Debt in Fast-Growing Startups

Startups move fast. Speed is survival. But with every skipped test, quick fix, or hastily added feature, a quiet cost builds in the background — technical debt.

[thetechaesthetic]

The Hidden Costs of Technical Debt (And How to Manage It)

Every development team has been there: you're racing to meet a deadline, and you make a few "temporary" compromises to ship on time. "We'll fix it later," you promise. But later rarely comes.

This is technical debt in action—the coding equivalent of financial debt. And just like credit card debt, it accrues interest over time in the form of increased development costs and decreased agility.

What Technical Debt Really Costs You

Technical debt isn't just about messy code. Its impact extends throughout your organization:

🕒 Development Slowdown As debt accumulates, even simple changes require navigating a labyrinth of workarounds and dependencies. What should take hours begins taking days.

💸 Increased Maintenance Costs Systems with high technical debt break in unexpected ways, leading to more bugs, more firefighting, and more late nights for your team.

😫 Developer Burnout Nothing demoralizes talented developers faster than spending their days wrestling with preventable problems instead of building new features.

🚫 Innovation Paralysis When your team is constantly putting out fires, there's no time or energy left for innovation—giving your competitors the chance to leap ahead.

Types of Technical Debt You Might Be Ignoring

Technical debt comes in many forms, some more obvious than others:

Code-level Debt • Duplicate code that needs to be updated in multiple places • Overly complex functions that only their original author understands • Missing tests that make changes risky • Outdated comments that mislead developers

Architectural Debt • Components that have too many responsibilities • Excessive dependencies between modules • Inconsistent patterns across the codebase • Outdated technologies that limit capabilities

Process Debt • Inadequate documentation • Inconsistent development practices • Manual deployment processes • Insufficient monitoring

Knowledge Debt • Reliance on "tribal knowledge" not captured in documentation • Code understood by only one team member • Lack of onboarding materials for new team members

The Technical Debt Quadrant

Not all technical debt is created equal. Martin Fowler's Technical Debt Quadrant helps categorize debt based on whether it was incurred deliberately or inadvertently, and whether it was reckless or prudent:

Deliberate + Prudent "We need to ship now and we understand the consequences of this shortcut." → This is strategic debt, taken with eyes open.

Deliberate + Reckless "We don't have time for design, just code it fast." → This is dangerous debt that often costs the most.

Inadvertent + Reckless "What's a design pattern?" → This comes from lack of knowledge or skills.

Inadvertent + Prudent "Now we know how we should have done it." → This is the natural result of learning and growth.

Understanding which quadrant your debt falls into helps determine how urgently it needs addressing.

5 Practical Strategies for Managing Technical Debt

Make It Visible Create a technical debt inventory. Use tools like SonarQube to identify code smells and track debt over time. Make technical debt a regular topic in team meetings.

Adopt the Boy Scout Rule "Always leave the campground cleaner than you found it." When working in a module, developers should make small improvements beyond their immediate task.

Schedule Regular Refactoring Allocate 10-20% of each sprint to debt reduction. Focus on high-interest areas first—code that changes frequently or causes regular problems.

Create a Repayment Plan For larger debt, create a prioritized roadmap. Consider factors like risk, impact on development speed, and business value when prioritizing.

Prevent New Debt Implement code reviews, automated testing, and clear coding standards. Create definition-of-done criteria that include quality metrics.

When to Pay Down Technical Debt

Not all debt needs immediate repayment. Consider these factors:

• How frequently does this code change? • How many people need to work with this code? • How critical is this component to your system? • What's the risk if something breaks here? • What opportunities does fixing this unlock?

Sometimes, the best approach is to contain debt rather than eliminate it—especially for stable, rarely changed components.

Real-World Success Story

One of our clients, a fintech company, was struggling with two-week release cycles that had stretched to six weeks due to accumulated technical debt. After implementing a structured debt reduction program, they:

• Reduced build times from 45 minutes to 8 minutes • Cut bug reports by 62% • Returned to their original two-week release cycle • Improved developer satisfaction scores by 40%

The key was making technical debt visible and treating it as a business problem, not just a technical one.

Want to learn how we help companies manage and reduce technical debt? Check out our approach at https://www.zignuts.com/

[laejoh]

[garymdm]

How Data Governance Helps Mitigate Technical and Data Debt

Ever feel like your organization is drowning in technical debt and data chaos? You’re not alone. These forms of debt accumulate over time and can hinder an organization’s ability to make informed decisions, innovate, and maintain efficient operations. Fortunately, effective data governance can play a crucial role in reducing both of these debts by establishing structured practices and policies…

[lostconsultants]

The Iron Triangle Illusion: Why Scope, Budget, and Time Are Never Really Fixed

The Iron Triangle illusion is one of the biggest myths in project management. The idea that you can lock down scope, budget, and time at once sounds great in theory, but in reality, one of these factors is always compromised—whether organisations admit it or not. Despite the best efforts to keep control, the real trade-offs happen in quality, team health, and long-term sustainability. So why do…

[jcmarchi]

The Mistakes of CSS

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-mistakes-of-css/

The Mistakes of CSS

Surely you have seen a CSS property and thought “Why?” For example:

Why doesn’t z-index work on all elements, and why is it “-index” anyways?

Or:

Why do we need interpolate-size to animate to auto?

You are not alone. CSS was born in 1996 (it can legally order a beer, you know!) and was initially considered a way to style documents; I don’t think anyone imagined everything CSS would be expected to do nearly 30 years later. If we had a time machine, many things would be done differently to match conventions or to make more sense. Heck, even the CSS Working Group admits to wanting a time-traveling contraption… in the specifications!

NOTE: If we had a time machine, this property wouldn’t need to exist.

CSS Values and Units Module Level 5, Section 10.4

If by some stroke of opportunity, I was given free rein to rename some things in CSS, a couple of ideas come to mind, but if you want more, you can find an ongoing list of mistakes made in CSS… by the CSS Working Group! Take, for example, background-repeat:

Not quite a mistake, because it was a reasonable default for the 90s, but it would be more helpful since then if background-repeat defaulted to no-repeat.

Right now, people are questioning if CSS Flexbox and CSS Grid should share more syntax in light of the upcoming CSS Masonry layout specifications.

Why not fix them? Sadly, it isn’t as easy as fixing something. People already built their websites with these quirks in mind, and changing them would break those sites. Consider it technical debt.

This is why I think the CSS Working Group deserves an onslaught of praise. Designing new features that are immutable once shipped has to be a nerve-wracking experience that involves inexact science. It’s not that we haven’t seen the specifications change or evolve in the past — they most certainly have — but the value of getting things right the first time is a beast of burden.

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[jayblanc]

Don't forget that the year 1800 is still technically in the 18th century, because The Venerable Bede didn't like to use zeros, so we have to suffer with a legacy off-by-one error.

i hate hate hate that the “NINEteenth century” is talking about the EIGHTEEN hundreds. i know why this happens mathematically and stuff. but isn’t it just so fucked up? doesn’t it feel so wrong? dont you have to fight with your brain to reconcile the difference? is this not a sign of humanity’s eternal despair?

[realityfragments]

Spaghetti Source, Spaghetti Dependencies...

There’s one thing that consistently showed up in my work as a software engineer over the decades. Spaghetti. Spaghetti code is easier to write than maintain, and in doing software archaeology (yes, it’s a thing), I’ve encountered numerous reasons for it. Requirements creep is one of the largest reasons. In fact, the first real software archaeology I did was explained, proudly, as being a…

[bdccglobal]

Transform your DevOps game with our expert strategies for selling technical debt.

Learn how to craft the perfect pitch to drive success in your organization.

[octylish]

I LOVE KNOCKING OUT TEETH

[ouaw-facts-i-just-made-up]

Each of the Krew had brand new anxieties and fears that spawned from the Jabberwock fight.

Gricko became worried he wasn't fast enough, wasn't good enough at magic. He began trying to rapidly improve by throwing everything at a wall and seeing what sticks. He also became considerably jumpy, like any interaction would necessitate an escape plan.

Frost was equally worried about his magical ability. He began pulling away from the group to meditate more and clear his mind, wits always sharp. He cannot be distracted like he was, too caught up to try and logic out what this creature wanted from them. It's for their own good that he isolates a little more. He needs to focus to protect them.

Torbek is less trying to hone a skill and more trying to rack his brain for answers. Why was this stupid Other ignoring him then but not when they attacked his friends? Or that rabbit guy?? If he has to be stuck like this, why won't they at least help protect his friends? Is he not strong enough? Not smart enough? Not willing to push his limits?

Gideon is disappointed in himself. He should be *so strong*, it's all he's good at. All he's good for. It's his *job*. And yet, he's the first to die. He just has to get tougher. So he starts working out more, by himself. Tries to improve his endurance, his pain tolerance. He *can't* die again. He has to protect his friends. If he dies, he needs to die knowing the enemy is dying with him. That's all that matters.

Kremy is pointedly ignoring the situation, on the outside. On the inside, his head has become a whirlwind of brand new anxieties. He makes plans for every possible situation that pops into his head. He has an escape route for every action. Every word is thought out five more times than usual. He just has to be careful. They can't die. They won't. He just has to be one more step ahead.

[ayanagi]

i’m so tired what if i just quit my day job prematurely