Technical debt - was Re: datetime seems to be broken WRT timezones (even when you add them)

Barry Scott barry at barrys-emacs.org
Tue Feb 11 16:25:35 EST 2020



> On 11 Feb 2020, at 20:01, Michael Torrie <torriem at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On 2/11/20 4:05 AM, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> Or just the recognition that, eventually, technical debt has to be
>> paid. 
> 
> Speaking about technical debt is certainly fashionable these days.  As
> if we've somehow discovered a brand new way of looking at things.  But
> it doesn't matter what you do, there's always real cost, and therefore
> always technical debt. Moving to Python 3 incurs technical debt.
> Staying with Python 2 incurs technical debt.  Thus I wonder if the term
> is actually that useful.


At Chris said moving to python3 will *reduce* your technical debt.
You are paying off the debt.


> 
> I know what you mean, though.  The cost of staying with Python2 is
> increasing rapidly compared to the cost of porting to Python3.  Unlike
> the nebulous term, "technical debt," the cost of staying with Python2 vs
> porting to Python3 can be quantified in real dollar amounts.  I've no
> doubt that the calculus is in favor of Python2 a while longer for many
> people.

Not to mention that its harder to hire people to work on tech-debt legacy code.

Given the choice between a legacy python2 job and a modern python3 job
what would you choose?

Barry


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