February 2009
Beginner
222 pages
5h 23m
English
Content preview from 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 87. Pay Down Your Technical Debt
Burk Hufnagel has been creating positive user experiences since 1978 and is a lead software architect at LexisNexis.
—Burkhardt Hufnagel
ON ANY PROJECT THAT IS IN PRODUCTION (i.e., it has customers that are using it), there will come a time when a change must be made; either a bug needs fixing, or a new feature must be added. At that point there are two possible choices: you can take the time needed to "do it right," or you can take one or more "shortcuts" and try to get the change out the door sooner.
Generally, the business people (sales/marketing and customers) will want the change made as quickly as possible, while the developers and testers will be more interested in taking the time to properly design, implement, and test the change before delivering it to the customers.
As the project's architect, you'll have to decide which makes more sense and then convince the decision makers to take your advice; and, as with most architectural issues, there is a tradeoff involved. If you believe the system is reasonably stable, then it may make sense to go the "quick and dirty" route and get the change into production quickly. That's fine, but you need to know that in doing so your project is incurring some "technical debt" that must be repaid later. Repayment, in this case, means going back and making the change in the way you would have if you'd had ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.