Technical Debt

Elizabeth Naramore (Jun 11, 2010 at 11:45)
Talk at Dutch PHP Conference 2010 (English - UK)

Rating: 4 of 5

Technical debt is something that most project teams or independent developers have to deal with - we take shortcuts to push out releases, we don't focus on quality, deadlines need to be met, quick fixes slowly become the standard. Whatever the reason, if we don't manage our technical debt (not unlike financial debt), before too long our applications are technically bankrupt, and we are forced to completely refactor and start anew.

In this talk, we will discuss what technical debt is, when it is acceptable and when it isn't, and strategies for effectively managing it, both on an independent and team level. We'll talk about how it affects the entire team and how to work through minimizing it, as well as working effectively as a team to address it.

Comments

Rating: 4 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 10:19 by magikmaker

Interesting stuff, never looked at it this way, although I'm fairly confident I'm in pretty much debt right now. I'll check out sonar

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 10:22 by Gerb

I was aware of some parts of technical debt, but this overall lay-out of the landscape provides a lot of insight. Also, the talk is well-structured, and Elizabeth is comfortable in her speaking role. Plenty of time for questions, which is also nice.

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 10:32 by Smithy

Very good talk, has opened my eyes to a different way of thinking!

Rating: 4 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 10:44 by Dynom

Refreshing, most of it is common sense and many is something I see happening around me and we need to be reminded about. The talk was a bit shorter then expected, but the questions/comments in the end finished the job.

Rating: 4 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 11:04 by nrocy

Good talk, guess i was secretely hoping for a magic bullet though. Presented in a lively and enjoyable way- bet elizabeth buys an hdmi adapter soon ;)

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 11:55 by _mvl

Very interesting talk. There should really be a version of this aimed at management. If you are a developer wanting to convince management to do something about technical debt or what is sometimes referred to as "maintenance backlog" you should probably think about ways to express the interest that your company is paying on the technical debt in terms of money.

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 12:12 by calevans

If you are a technical lead, regardless of the language your team works in, you need to see this talk and understand the concepts presented. (If you don't understand them, you have to question why you are in a leadership position.)

Liz takes a topic that is probably less popular among developers than unit testing, and presents it clearly and with passion. This was a great session.

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 12:18 by andriesss

Refreshing talk with lots of material to think about.

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 13:01 by Anonymous

Technical debt seems to be a very useful interface between developers and managers.

Rating: 4 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 16:31 by Miljar

This was a good talk, and it was well presented by Elizabeth. However, some slides were skipped quite fast by just reading out loud what the slide said. No biggie though, it got me thinking about technical debt in general, and how I can present this concept to my boss more specifically.

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 16:47 by simonrjones

excellent talk by an engaging speaker. Although it covered a lot of general details, I found it really interesting. Seems to me to be terribly important that people simply recognise technical debt exists, I certainly feel more able to communicate this back to the team after this talk.

Rating: 4 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 17:12 by lloydwatkin

Well presented, all stuff I've read/heard before but was good to have it all together in one sitting

Rating: 3 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 19:11 by nuqqsa

This is a GREAT analysis of technical debt (take a look at the slides!) although IMO the speech did not add much value to the written contents.

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 21:11 by Intrepidity

Excellent talk with a good speaker (speakster?) and with lots of useful information.

Rating: 4 of 5

Jun 11, 2010, 22:10 by Anonymous

I'm in so much debt, sometimes it's hard to have see the truth!

Rating: 3 of 5

Jun 12, 2010, 07:40 by bmaorlo

The content was good but i think the lecture should practice more on how to present it and not only to read from the presentation , But again the content was very interesting and i will for sure make use with a lot of the stuff that were said there.

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 12, 2010, 16:50 by Marsman

Both confronting and entertaining. Very well done!

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 12, 2010, 18:12 by rickmb

Excellent talk. Entertaining, inspiring and informative.

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 13, 2010, 09:47 by mcleod@spaceweb.nl

Great talk. Very nice to meet you after hearing and reading your name so many times.

Made me aware that catching up with my unit tests is going to be prio 1 over the next months.

Rating: 4 of 5

Jun 13, 2010, 13:52 by bwaine

Learned a lot. Liked the section on software tools. Good q&a session.

Rating: 3 of 5

Jun 14, 2010, 07:32 by matthijs.vandenbos

Good stuff

Rating: 5 of 5

Jun 14, 2010, 18:01 by Martin1982

This was really a very nice talk, the fast pace, the simple but useful information was really good. And although everyone keeps fighting against 'the ties' about this subject, the tool to express technical debt in money was absolutely ground-breaking for developers dealing with this convincing issue!

Rating: 4 of 5

Jun 16, 2010, 15:36 by tswann

A gentle and fun talk that illustrates very clearly how the little mistakes and oversights of "good practice" can build up.

The only negative is that much of the talk was on screen - so I felt as though I could have just downloaded teh slides and not gone to the talk.

Want to comment on this talk? Log in or create a new account or comment anonymously

Write a comment

 
Please note: you are not logged in and will be posting anonymously!
© Joind.in 2010