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Unethical Ways to Manage Technical Debt (queue.acm.org)
submitted 2 days ago by codeinabox@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev
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You can ignore it, tie it to unrelated company initiatives, or feign ignorance and simply not offer solutions that add to it. Or… you can adopt more above-board techniques such as Crawl/Walk/Run and the Reverse Farmer’s Rule, which reframe projects so that confronting tech debt is an upfront part of the plan.

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[-] lysdexic@programming.dev 14 points 2 days ago

Is it really unethical if it benefits the organization? Even if that’s not really the goal.

The blogger acknowledge that the use of the word "unethical" as a hyperbole ton drive engagement.

The real-world issue is that we need to get stakeholders on board with the idea of having to do extra work that is not required to deliver a feature. If you tell a manager that you need to spend a month rewriting a system that was just launched, they will laugh at you.

this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
80 points (97.6% liked)

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