Hacker News Reader

Comment by qprofyeh | Hacker News Reader

> In the end, if none of that works, just cheat. Just lie and pad your estimates, so you automatically build in some time for reducing technical debt with all of your estimates, which unfortunately I’ve had to use more often than I would like to have used. It is a valuable tactic to keep in your toolbox.

Interesting opinion. However I cannot agree with this part that tries to justify having a personal agenda and putting it above the company's mission. Unless you're fighting an executive level fight (probably not a good idea then either) there's no good reason to exaggerate stories about technical debt unless it forms an immediate impediment. You might end up being the one who killed your company.

View on HN

It's not a personal agenda. It's a professional quality line, that you as a professional need to maintain.

On a typical day, you don't vary the quality of output to match the deadline. The deadline should adjust to accomodate the amount of time it'll take you to complete the feature at the quality level you deliver.

Agreed. She mentions "code that's good enough", and I think that's the problem I encounter at work. Take the extra time to write bug free and maintainable code, which means the task might take longer if refactoring is required.

There should be no problem refactoring code in pursuit of building a feature or fixing a bug. If you're refactoring unrelated code, that's where it gets a little dicier.

> You might end up being the one who killed your company.

If an extra day to clean up your code is an issue, your company is already dead. What if you have to push it back a day because you get sick?

I agree, but the problem is that it is never 'just a day.' Developer comes and needs a couple hours to clean up some code. Cool, the a couple hours turns into a day, then a week, then no new features are being shipped. It is very easy to get into a constant refactoring perfectionist state to the point where nothing ships. It is so common in fact that we have memes about 'real engineers ship'.

I would rephrase that as "putting the company's mission above specific instructions that are detrimental to that mission." Intent and judgment matters a lot here: if someone has good judgment and is sincerely trying to make the product or company better, he or she should have some leeway. Selfish losers shouldn't, but I don't think that part of the article was directed at them.

Who says you're putting it above the company's mission? Paying down the technical debt makes it easier to roll out changes in the future, which would make the company more competitive.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com