[# ALM] Painting walls, changing diapers and technical debt

Push it Somewhere Else Patrick - ¿Pero desde cuando esta esto asi? no me lo digan ... desde el comienzo :S Hi,

When I was little my father was responsible for transforming a small cottage 2 bedrooms in a plant to a much more habitable House where what not missing were the rooms, living rooms and musical instruments. During the years of work, they were going many masons who helped shape the new House my dad. One that I won’t forget never was “Don Justo”;a person with an incredible heart and a desire to work that hopefully today I found on the street. And even though was with us a couple of years, something that I never knew of Don Justo, was that height had fallen head in childhood or lacked the small oxygen.

I remember one afternoon when I came home and saw my dad sitting with Don Justo and another Mason, explaining why the bad choice in his work. It is to put tiles on the floor of a room, as Don Justo had this bright idea:

-Hey mate, that we delay in finishing this work, how about if we start to put one on each side tiles? and then we just settled which we find ourselves in the middle.

Does not lack that tell them that when my dad came and saw that they were about to close a strip on the floor of 5 cms, with cut tiles in the middle of a room; It almost gives you a heart attack. I remember that the talk that I gave to explain the reason for his mistake, sounded phrases such as “aesthetically bad“, “take out the entire apartment and put him back” and “I do not pay them anymore“. But hey, the next day was already everything in order and properly set floor.

Again, with another partner that nor do I remember his name, to Don Justo touching paint a wall of almost 100 meters.This time in his eagerness to finish quickly, you dropped his companion following brilliance:

-Hey mate, I’d say Let’s start one at each end of the wall to paint it and we are in the Middle, but it seems that the pattern these ideas you dislike. We better do it backwards, started the 2 in the Center and we are painting one on each side until we finish the wall.

If you think carefully about the idea is great. My dad when he arrived saw as they had started, had painted about 20 meters from the wall and they gave the OK. Furthermore as this was a Monday, my dad thought that perhaps before the weekend would the wall be ready. On Tuesday when we got home, we saw that it had advanced the painting, but not so on the first day; “then perhaps there has been a problem thought my dad“. But when only Wednesday had painted about 40 meters, my dad asked Don Justo if there was any problem. The response was damning; “it is that we put the jar/can of paint to the environment and every day we have further.” This time in the lesson of my dad sounded phrases like “I shit in to…“, “and if you are using 2 jars, and other things that small could not repeat. But we are that with a bit of desire, for Friday was the painted wall and all so happy.

Today 20 years later, I think that Don Justo was an adelantadoa his time. It was a very sensitive person with details, did his job very well, but when he tried to improve the way in which worked without thinking in detail the consequences, because generally it failed it and eventually ended up paying a higher price than the original.

In computing this is what is known as “Technical Debt“. Many times, by the pressure of a tight delivery or the rush of the day day, we are forced to spend long practices, solid structures of design and other elements that in the long run will they bring us problems. The problem with these “debts” that we leave in our code is that each day that passes they become “more expensive”; that is more difficult to solve.

Consider a practical example, that if you are a parent you will understand right away and can if you are not a parent, since you so you imagine: “(c)ambiar diapers with poop is unpleasant“. This is nothing new, but doing so badly worn, can be the beginning of the decadence of the world as we know it. He thinks that every day you change about 3 diapers with a delicate chocolate cream, which is popularly known as “baby shit“. Because these 3 diapers go to a special waste basket and every day, at night you forth “remove garbage”. In my case, this is to take the bag with 3 diapers and bring it to a garbage container specially designed for the “chocolate cream” (then not be as it is recycled, is going to Valencia and I by doubts have not made more orange juice).

That happens if one day, you’re a little tired and think that tomorrow you will get all the trash Board; so that you are with 6 diapers to download. The next day you are a little tired and think; “morning do, total 9 diapers to 150 grams for diaper, is 1.35 KG“. You feel very accomplished to this magic formula, do a bit of numbers and you get to the conclusion that your garbage bags cannot withstand up to 5 kg. You’re a prudent person so you think:

10 days > > 30 diapers > > 4.5 kg > > acceptable limit

And you save 45 minutes in total (5 minutes to drive out rubbish per day). You you are the best father in the world!

I tell you what is happening, the tenth day you’re with a bag full of diapers on the verge of bursting. Close the same, the shots of the handles and when you go out, it decides to biodegradarse and loose all of its contents in the rug/carpet in your House. That’s not all in your reflection natural stop things falling to the floor, you give a kick to the bag, thinking that you can a bit stop its fall and you realize a couple of things:

1. Diapers absorb the early days, but then run a boomerang effect; they returned all what they have absorbed.

2 Brown fits very well to the sofa and other furniture in your living room.

The image you have in mind now says you it all and I do not think that those 45 minutes that you’ve saved in 10 days, compensate travel to Dyer, the verbal rebuke of your wife, the face of scare the cat when he was sleeping so quiet on the couch and dropped the “chocolate cream” above, etc.

You understand now,