I'm just trying to change this lightbulb (2014)

I really like this analogy. Its very prevalent in many teams.

Tho I would say experienced developer is able to recognize business needs and how much work has to be put into something NOW.

Being able to leave stuff open for fixing later is a crucial skill.

I would even go as far as say that not having this skill automatically discredits someone from a Senior position.

> Hal and Lois just illustrated for us what software people like to call “Technical Debt”

Wait didn't they more accurately illustrate what software people like to call "yak shaving"? I mean sure all of these little problems could be analogous to tech debt ... but the thing that sticks out more than anything is that Hal is shifting from one task to the next, each one to make the previous one easier/possible, and each one is further and further from the original goal

I believe the technical term is yak shaving. As in, to get to resolving the original problem you wind up having to shave a yak in order to solve it.

I think what could help is using JIRA -like issues-reporting system dedicated not to publicly observable problems ("bugs") with the software application, but internal code-design issues which can be seen to possibly cause detrimental issues with software maintenance later. In other words issues which can be categorized as technical debt.

Technically this could be implemented using the same software that is used for bug-reporting.

Then would developers willingly report issues to such a system? I think they would because solving such issues is satisfying to whoever cares about software quality, because it makes it easier to maintain the system in the future.

From a developer's perspective the worst kind of assignment is to try to fix something in a very fragile system because if they "break it, they own it". Therefore developers love SW quality.

But would management approve of spending time on reporting and possibly fixing design issues? Well why not because if the knowledge of the issues exists only in the head of some developers, it is not really owned by the company. Whereas if it was reported in an issue-tracking system it would become official part of the IP owned by the company, increasing its value. So yes I think at least some enlightened managers would approve the use of such a system.

Using such a system would seem to make a lot of sense to me. Perhaps companies are already doing it?