August 2009
Beginner
252 pages
6h 2m
English
Content preview from 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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 6. Pay Your Debts
DEBT, WHEN WELL MANAGED, is a useful financial instrument for both ordinary citizens and successful organizations. It balances present insufficiencies by borrowing against future surpluses. Used judiciously, short-term debt is an effective tool for smoothing out the rough edges of cash ebbs and flows. When abused, it becomes a burdensome yoke that makes it increasingly stressful to move along.
In the world of software development, borrowing time can be a useful strategy for meeting "at risk" milestones, while completing most of what needs to be done. Ward Cunningham introduced the notion of "technical debt" as something developers can incur as they head toward the end of an iteration,[2] or a deadline, if time gets short. At that point, they may not be able to do code right, but by taking some shortcuts they may be able to program code "right enough" to still cross the finish line.
Even though the software is in a temporary, imperfect state, this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do if the technical debt incurred is managed responsibly. If it is not paid off, however, it will start to become more painful to do over time. Continued borrowing against the future without repayment will put the project further at risk.
The best way to pay off your technical debt is to assess what "loans" were taken at the end of each iteration. Ask your developers to ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
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.