Explore Jon Thornton's talk from LeadDev New York 2023 on the concept of "good technical debt" in software engineering. Discover how intentional technical debt can be leveraged as a strategic tool for rapid development and project success. Learn about an investment-based approach to software development, where time is treated as currency and project tasks are viewed as investments with potential returns. Gain insights into prioritizing value creation, managing risk, and reducing wasted effort in software projects. Examine real-world examples from Squarespace's Email Campaigns product development, which was built and shipped in less than 15 months. Acquire practical guidelines for using technical debt to enhance technical investments and improve project outcomes. Delve into topics such as MVP development, hardcoding, avoiding premature abstractions, and the importance of feedback loops in the development process.
Good Technical Debt: An Investment-Based Approach to Software Development
Overview
Syllabus
Introduction
What is technical debt
Why technical debt
Debt is a tool
Cunningham is credited
Accounting with time
Jons introduction
Squarespace
MVP
Debt to Speed Development
Good Tech Debt
Hardcoding
Example
If Statement
Avoiding abstractions
Bring the pain forward
Unscalable
Analytics
Innovation
Poker
Beta Launch
The Wild Thing
High Confidence
Where do we start
Monkey on a pedestal
We have no idea
Train the monkey first
Build a pedestal
Build measure learn loop
Surveys vs observations
The problem
The monkey order
The email editor
The pedestal
A good tech deck
Avoid throwaway work
Scaffolding
Bad is okay
Feedback
Guidelines
Awareness
Intention
Links
Time
Taught by
LeadDev
