What's the difference between "legacy code" and "technical debt" -- and what does it mean for your business? SaaS founders and product owners will gain clarity on the connection between software infrastructure and business value.
There is a fundamental difference between legacy code and technical debt.
A feature that has grown past it's initial design spec or has otherwise become so successful that it can't meet the current demands from our customers.
Example: An entrepreneurial chef launches a food truck in an area to test a new cuisine. The experiment is so successful that the food truck now has a line around the block that needs to be converted into a full-scale restaurant 🎉
Code that is written (often while in a hurry) to solve a critical business need with or without the recognition that it is setting the future business up for failure if it not replaced. What's more, if we don't have the experience to recognize (or don't take the time to recognize) the difference between a high-quality vs. a poor-quality implementation, we can create technical debt accidentally-- an even worse version of tech debt.
Example: A restaurant has a huge influx of customers for a huge event and decides to purchase 200 cheap lawn chairs to seat their customers, knowing that the chairs are poor quality and will absolutely fall apart if they aren't replaced immediately after the event 🪑
There is a huge difference in the two different situations above. We do ourselves a disservice if we conflate legacy code with technical debt because they are two different things. One is born out of success, and the other is not.
After leaving the backwoods of Tennessee, crossing 40 miles of desert with an oil pan patched with chewing gum, and surviving a tsunami in Saipan, Casey burst into the field of software development. A decade later, he's using his broad array of life experienced to build, mentor, and inspire amazing software engineering teams in the B2B SaaS space. If you join him for a beer, you might hear tales of how he retained 100% of his team during the great resignation, or the time he assisted a group of sailors to safety as their dock broke apart during hurricane Nichole.
What's the difference between "legacy code" and "technical debt" -- and what does it mean for your business? SaaS founders and product owners will gain clarity on the connection between software infrastructure and business value.
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