Every software project has technical debt. Under deadline pressure, you make compromises. The problem arises when the debt grows large enough to slow down development.
How We Recognized It¶
A new feature that would take a day in clean code took a week. Every change broke something else. A new developer needed a month to get oriented. Build took 20 minutes. Tests were failing randomly.
Measurement — SonarQube¶
Duplications, cyclomatic complexity, coding standards, test coverage. Technical debt metric: 340 man-days. A shock.
Repayment Strategy¶
Boy Scout Rule: improve the area around every commit. 20% of capacity dedicated to refactoring. Strangler Pattern for legacy modules. Test first before refactoring.
Prioritization¶
Not everything is equally painful. Hot spots (frequently changed code) come first. A stable module that nobody touches can wait.
Conclusion¶
Technical debt is normal, but you have to manage it. Measure it, pay it down regularly, and prioritize by pain. And talk to the client about it — it’s a business risk.
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