[jandrese]

Also, sometimes the things that developers consider "technical debt" end up working just fine and don't cause that much trouble.

There is always the urge to build something "the right way" where it's fully modular and extensible, but if you never need to extend something the additional layers of abstraction end up being more of a hindrance than a help.

There is a certain level of efficiency in building things the cheap and easy way by default and only rewriting the parts where it was actually a problem.

[bryanlarsen]

Exactly.

I've seen developers reduce technical debt in a way that others consider to be an increase in technical debt.

One developer can add abstractions, modularity and extensibility to a code to reduce technical debt.

Another developer can strip out unneeded abstractions, modularity and extensibility to reduce technical debt.

[ClumsyPilot]

Most developers cannot know ahead of time if a goven piece of code needs to be entensible.

Often noone does

[Swizec]

Layers of abstraction are the most common type of technical debt.