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Ask HN: Do you have real-world experience of technical debt killing a project?

Explaining the impact of technical debt to someone non-technical who hasn't experienced it first hand is almost impossible (e.g. "why didn't you just do it properly the first time?").

It would be great to get a thread here detailing real-world examples of debt killing a project, or more, that we can all point people to when they claim it's just developers complaining.

Sample experiences worth sharing include:

* Have you been part of a project that ground to a halt because of technical debt?

* Have you ever had to abandon a project/product and "start again from scratch" because of problems in the previous codebase.

* Have you ever left a job because the overhead of servicing technical debt made the job impossible?

* Have you ever worked for a company that went under because debt was holding them back?

I know it may not be possible, but real company names would definitely add value.

3 points hugorodgerbrown 12 years ago 6 comments

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