Comments:" Hacking debt | The Endeavour"
URL:http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2013/04/24/hacking-debt/
The term technical debt describes the accumulated effect of short term decisions in a software development process. In order to meet a deadline, for example, a project will take shortcuts, developing code in a way that’s not best for future maintainability but that saves time immediately. Once the pressure is off, hopefully, the team goes back and repays the technical debt by refactoring.
I’d like to propose hacking debt to describe a person who has been focused on “real work” for so long that he or she hasn’t spent enough time playing around, making useless stuff for the fun of it. Some portion of a career should be devoted to hacking. Not 100%, but not 0% either. Without some time spent exploring and having fun, people become less effective and eventually burn out.
Related posts:
Just-in-case versus just-in-time
Bicycle skills
Playful and purposeful, pure and applied
For hacking financial debt, see this.