Comment by mr_tristan

> I’ve never seen insurmountable technical debt grind business to a halt. Not once.

I’ve seen this happen more then once. The best and brightest tire of the crap and leave to go do other things; and those who stay erode the culture into a cesspool of negativity. Sure the business trods along for a while but often the products just enter a phase of slow death and irrelevancy. At some point there’s some kind of private equity acquisition or transaction which just temporarily delays the inevitable.

To be clear, I’m not arguing for “strict requirements”. Just that the professional engineer is who needs to distill the chaos into clear and ready action. And, that “just ship it” can sometimes come with cost.

These articles usually come across as flippant. They are written from a small business or early phase/unproven startup point of view. Sure, don’t waste all your time tweaking tools, but at the same time, make sure you’re not shooting yourself in the foot because of the 50 kludges put in place that overlooked security or performance considerations.

I guess this is just a way of saying “there is no silver bullet”. “Just ship it” doesn’t always work.