Technical Debt
Technical debt is a metaphor in software development that describes the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy or limited solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer. It represents the trade-off between short-term benefits and long-term quality, often accumulating as shortcuts, outdated code, or suboptimal design decisions. Managing technical debt is crucial for maintaining code health, reducing future development costs, and ensuring system scalability and maintainability.
Developers should understand technical debt to make informed decisions about when to incur it (e.g., to meet deadlines or validate prototypes) and when to pay it down (e.g., before major feature additions or to reduce bugs). It is essential in agile and iterative development environments where balancing speed and quality is key, and it helps teams prioritize refactoring and code reviews to prevent system degradation over time.