[adamconroy]

i agree and on top of that I've always thought 'technical debt' was a bad analogy (like most analogies).

my reasoning is that real world debt is inescapable, whereas if someone writes some crap code, which is hard to read/maintain/extend, then the debt is only called in if someone has to maintain it. My intuition is that a fair percentage of code that once it works and is tested, never has changes made, or the whole system is replaced without the code ever changing.

if you buy a house with a mortgage, but never live in it, you still have to pay the debt. if you write some code and don't ever touch it again, there is no debt to pay.