Matches my own experience when working on software where quality matters, like large and long-running scientific projects: Even if there are tight time constraints, you won’t sacrifice quality, because that would make you slower.
Matches my own experience when working on software where quality matters, like large and long-running scientific projects: Even if there are tight time constraints, you won’t sacrifice quality, because that would make you slower.
Too right. People find this so hard to understand. I think they dramatically underestimate the payback time on technical debt.
I am currently working in a startup that has the classic “we’re a startup, quality doesn’t matter” attitude. They think that they might not be around in a year so it’s best to go fast and not give a shit about tech debt.
In my experience that attitude bites in under 6 months. I’m already wasting entire days sorting out messes that they neglected to deal with.
That’s pretty much in line with what John Ousterhout writes. I think if you deal with multi-threading / locking / diszributed systems stuff, that time span is likely to be lower.
hmm. Are you atleast getting credit for fixing all that?
No, generally people are annoyed that you’re spending time paying off tech debt instead of piling on more.