Technical Debt: Pay It Down or Leave It

"Shipping first time code is like going into debt. A little debt speeds development so long as it is paid back promptly with a rewrite."

Ward Cunningham wrote those sentences in an experience report about WyCash, a portfolio management system for managers of cash portfolios. He continued: "The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid. Every minute spent on not-quite-right code counts as interest on that debt."

The comparison is now so common that "technical debt" often means any code an engineer dislikes. Cunningham's version is more useful, because it names a cost that can be measured