When coding is fussy, it creates problems. Inappropriate variables, copy paste job, coding that follow no guidelines, bug issues, and incorrect method naming are the challenges of coding. There is no denying the fact. Then, such technical debts or TDs are not worth tracking. You might be wondering why. Your developers deal with such issues in every day refactoring. Therefore, when your development team codes the next time, they should eliminate inaccurate coding, and if left ignored, you will have to cope with TD. It will not make much of a difference. Then, the best practice is rectifying the erroneous codes and avoid being complacent as if no problem exists.

According to an article published on https://www.huffingtonpost.com, taking TD too seriously will adversely affect your product, development teams, and of course customers. There is no doubt about the same.

However, you need to focus on bad TDs. Make sure no Heartbleed occurs in your backlog and if you notice it, solve the problem immediately. You cannot procrastinate. Make sure you are able to develop a patched library without any delay. All other aspects besides this should be kept aside for addressing later. If your application has a new version with a few bugs, it does not matter significantly. You must not upgrade for the heck of it. It will be a waste of your time and efforts. You will find possibilities with new problems with no or little outcome. Keep reading if you want to learn why to avoid monitoring TD.

No TD tracking, but manage it professionally

Though you feel that tracking TD is the most rational thing to do, it is not so. You should realize it fast. If you do not monitor the same, you will never learn about its scope. Then, the things you try to register in the backlog will never prove accurate and failsafe and complete. There is no doubt about the same. You will never know how much TD you face due to the obscure debt that you take out without understanding. You will be in a soup if you cannot figure out the type of TD or might not have found it yet.

When you are prepared to do TD tracking, it is nothing but time waste for all developers. Therefore, monitor only that TD that the product manager and the whole development agree to pay off, else not. That is the rule of thumb if you want to succeed. Once you realize this, you can pay off the same without much ado. Do not be complacent in this respect. It will not help you in the long-term. It is possible that with one or two sprints, you can pay the same. If not, learn to ignore such things. Take some time out of your busy schedule and refractor and avoid building a huge backlog. When you deal with TD, your developers should act sensibly, and not out of impulse. If you have too much financial burden due to TD, make sure you visit websites like NationaldebtRelief.com or similar platforms for any financial assistance at reasonable rates of interest.

Ensure you complete the task quickly

When you detect incorrect and messy coding, make sure you make amends quickly. You need to clean the code up in a few weeks time or a few months at the most. There is no place for the delay. Else, your product will suffer and its performance. Otherwise, TDs will become too much to pay off. That is the last thing you are looking for when dealing with TDs. The more you delay, the more challenging it becomes to authenticate or make any amends about the same. Then, if the code is working as expected and all other developers have ample tasks, why monitor TDs in the first place. There is no point in doing so and you should realize it as soon as possible. The necessity of doing something about TDs will not arise at all. And if the process continues the way it is, you will not remember about the same. When you see it unsolved, you will have a bad feeling, but you must overcome such emotions.

There is no need to worry. If you are lucky, then the TD will be paid off and maybe without you knowing about the same. A person may refractor some of the coding when changing or may even eliminate the same; as the features have become outdated currently. This way, your TD might wane from the code base though it may be seen on your books.

TDs bad enough

You will notice some TDs that are difficult to manage and the debt that you took accelerate much quicker than normal. It may lead to inaccurate decision making and guessing. This is a problem situation in a true sense. It is also possible that you did not understand what was mistaken, and realize currently. Yes, such possibilities exist. Maybe you or some other individual picked the inappropriate language, framework, technology stack, and architecture. You realize the system is not scaling and has issues like an undependable under load, prevalent with security issues, which are very tough to alter. Yes, it is a hard nut to crack when it comes to bad TDs. It becomes impossible to refractor at this stage.

The only way is taking the issues as they are before you and start working from scratch. Keeping track of bad TDs on your backlog is beating the air in vain. The result is futile. Therefore, there is no use in wasting time on bad TDs.

The code is fine but hacked

You figure that the coding has no problems, but has been hacked. You copied too many and pasted too many codes. You disregarded the coding guidelines and rules. You did not bother to analyze or review the coding process. You did not test the codes. You left the entire thing in debugging code and now will have to face the challenge to maintain the same.

Conclusion

You learn now that why you should not track TDs. Manage it in a smart way instead. Make sure that TDs do not go out of the developers’ control.

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