Love it or hatred it (usually the latter), method debt is inherent in any long-term engineering effort. Not just software: if you think the Boeing 787 doesn't contain decades-old legacy components, you may be an incurable optimist. Good on you! For the remainder of us, though, method debt is simply a fact of life, and while we all agree "technical debt is bad" we frequently end up in a perennial, soul-sucking arguments that seldom lead to actual progress. Why is that?
In this whirlwind tour of past mistakes and existential post-mortems we will deconstruct method debt, break down its negative consequences and analyse why it's so hard to tackle both technically and organizationally. A well-defined problem is 1 we can actually decision the needle on, and with clarity we can arrive at better strategies. method debt may not be a curable disease, but it doesn't should be a terminal one!
