"Technical dept is like financial dept, but instead of borrowing money you're borrowing time. Taking a shortcut in an architectural or software decision to save time when at a future date you need to come back and fix or enhance that shortcut. The more shortcuts you take postponing required coding, the more technical dept you build up..."
(inventor of Wiki) Ward Cunningham first drew the comparison between technical complexity and debt in a 1992 experience report
Shipping first time code is like going into debt. A little debt speeds development so long as it is paid back promptly with a rewrite... The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid. Every minute spent on not-quite-right code counts as interest on that debt. Entire engineering organizations can be brought to a stand-still under the debt load of an unconsolidated implementation, object-oriented or otherwise.
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