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Ask HN: Have you ever worked on a product that was killed by technical debt?
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Re: Ask HN: Have you ever worked on a product that was killed by technical debt?
#2I've worked in the industry as a developer for 12 years and I can't remember any.
I do remember a competitor dying of not releasing their big refactored next version soon enough, and running out of cash.
Spolski tells it better than me:
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever worked on a product that was killed by technical debt?
#3Kind of, but not really. When I complain about that product I almost always complain about marketing, intransigent leadership, etc. Ostensibly technical debt killed the product, but technical debt is almost always a symptom not a cause. Technical debt can get out of control, but you have to wonder how it got to be that way.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever worked on a product that was killed by technical debt?
#4I did work on a project that was Rails 3, and for various reasons, it can never be upgraded without basically rebuilding the entire system. They keep hoping for an exit that will simply never happen because who would buy a rotting system like that? I think myself and only a few other devs there understood the situation. Its not like sales or the CEO fully understood.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever worked on a product that was killed by technical debt?
#5I've worked in the industry as a developer for 12 years and I can't remember any. I do remember a competitor dying of not releasing their big refactored next version soon enough, and running out of cash. Spolski tells it better than me: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
Spolsky should be required reading in software development classes. I wish he had time to keep it up.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever worked on a product that was killed by technical debt?
#6I think implementations are more often killed by technical debt rather than products or brands tbh.
Although at that point I wouldn't call it technical debt. If you've a million lines of spaghetti code, then you've a million lines of spaghetti code not technical debt. I.e. a camel is a camel. It's not a horse with technical debt.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever worked on a product that was killed by technical debt?
#7I've worked in the industry as a developer for 12 years and I can't remember any. I do remember a competitor dying of not releasing their big refactored next version soon enough, and running out of cash. Spolski tells it better than me: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
The Firefox rewrite was a success by all measures. Spolsky is wrong on this one, at least with the claims of generality.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever worked on a product that was killed by technical debt?
#8Technical debt won't necessarily kill a project, but over time it will reduce the speed at which you iterate and ship software. That loss of speed does kill companies, young and old.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever worked on a product that was killed by technical debt?
#9Killed - no. But I worked on several products that weren't able to move fast enough because of it, and lost money as result.
One of those products was released half a year late and turned out to be a poor market fit. The company closed several months later. It could've used this half a year to complete a pivot with another product, which could have been successful.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever worked on a product that was killed by technical debt?
#10Killed - no. But I worked on several products that weren't able to move fast enough because of it, and lost money as result. One of those products was released half a year late and turned out to be a poor market fit. The company closed several months later. It could've used this half a year to complete a pivot with another product, which could have been successful.
If it was released late, that sounds like more a case of not having enough technical debt. If they'd kicked the can a bit further down the road maybe they could have released sooner, realised it didn't fit the market, and cut their losses.