Most organisations think of their technical debt as a burden to be managed. Others are finding more success by making it an important part of the day-to-day job of a developer.
Most organisations think of their technical debt as a burden to be managed. Others are finding more success by making it an important part of the day-to-day job of a developer.
“Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to get out of.” Josh Billings (American humorist) It’s one of the dirtiest words in tech. Just as in life, the very mention of debt conjures feelings of being weighed down, under stress. And getting out of debt is a chore. In
Architecture decision records (ADRs) help keep track of decisions about tech tools and projects.
GitHub, ThoughtWorks, and eBay use ADRs to provide a detailed, clear history and guide the future.
Losing the context on a decision can make it a silent, lurking liability and ADRs avoid that.
When developers at fintech startup Nubank needed to choose which database they d use for its customer interaction system, they didn t rush into the decision. They carefully listed all of the attributes they wanted the database to have like flexibility and compatibility with existing tools as well as all the different options, like Amazon DynamoDB and Datomic. For each option, they then listed the pros and cons of each tool.