Zero technical debt certainly is... ambitious. Sure, if we knew _what_ to build the first time around this would be possible. From my experience, the majority of technical debt is sourced from product requirement changes coupled with tight deadlines. I think even the most ardent follower of Tiger Style is going to find this nigh impossible.

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zoul 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I would even say that from a project management perspective, zero technical debt is undesirable. It means you have invested resources into perfecting something that, almost by definition, could have waited a while, instead of improving some more important metric such as user experience. (I do understand tech debt makes it harder to work with the codebase, impacting all metrics, I just don’t think zero tech debt is a good target.)

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lll-o-lll an hour ago | parent [-]

> perfecting something that, almost by definition, could have waited a while

No technical debt is not the same thing as “perfection”. Good enough doesn’t mean perfect.

Would it be ok to submit an essay with only 90% of the underlined spelling mistakes fixed? Do you paint your outdoor table but leave the underside for later?

Do it once, do it right. That doesn’t mean perfect, it means not cutting corners.

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zoul an hour ago | parent [-]

Would you keep fixing the underlined spelling mistakes on your “watch out for holes in the pavement” sign while people are already walking there?

	▲	lll-o-lll 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		There are contexts where quick and dirty and (hopefully) come back later are warranted. Far more often it is just an excuse for shoddy work. You used the word “perfection” as the contrast to “technical debt”. Granted, technical debt is not a well defined term, but I am simply highlighting that “free from technical debt” in no way implies anything like perfect. It just implies well made.