How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Future Self

What Is Tech Debt?

A concept in software development that reflects the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy (limited) solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer.

What Does Tech Debt Look Like While Freelancing?

Possible Tech Debt:

 Inconsistent Tech Stack

• Arguably the thing you have the most control over
• Create a starter theme
  • Asset compiling
  • Remove common bloat
  • Bedrock with default plugins
  • Possible Parent Theme

Possible Tech Debt:

Scattered Hosting Providers

• Try and keep as many clients on the same provider as possible
• Keep a similar deployment workflow if possible among providers (git)

Possible Tech Debt:

Bit Rot

• When balancing short vs. long-term solutions, lean towards long-term
• Create an extendible solution. How will I update this feature down the road?
• MVC is your friend

Possible Tech Debt:

Poor Project Planning

• Ask a lot of questions upfront
• Build the feature set into your contract with the client
• Set a generous timeline for yourself, if possible

Possible Tech Debt:

Little-to-no QA & QC

• TDD can avoid many problems from being committed
• End to end testing can eliminate many bugs from making it to production
• Setup a staging server