In 1992 the American programmer Ward Cunningham introduced a metaphor at a software conference: “Shipping first-time code is like going into debt.” A little debt speeds development, he wrote, as long as it is paid back promptly. “The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid.”
Technical debt is now a standard term in software teams. Often the shortcut is taken on purpose, and the cost of fixing it later is counted as interest. In Cunningham’s words: “Every minute spent on not-quite-right code counts as interest on that debt.”