[prewett]

I never thought about the idea of "technical profit," but I think it is insightful. There is, indeed technical profit. When you have a quality design that fits the system's space really well, then you can maintain and add features really quickly and safely. This is technical profit.

When Paul Graham talks about how writing Lisp enabled his startup implement features quicker than the competition, that's technical profit. Google's internal systems that allow them to maintain thousands of machines; create large, distributed filesystems; and who know what else are technical profit.

There was an article recently about Boeing retiring the 747, and it commented how pilots would take a picture of the plane after flying it. (Passengers, too) In aerodynamics form is function, and I suspect that the outward beauty reflected excellence of design. The design served them so well they just now retired it after 40 years, despite all the advances since it was originally designed. If I'm right, this is technical profit.

Perhaps the idea of technical profit would be an easier sell to management, especially as management types see debt as useful, but programmers see it as a liability.