What is Technical Debt and Why Does App Development Get Slower Over Time?

What will happen if you prioritize speedy delivery of functionality over perfect code?

Does it reduce the team's agility and impact your overall software development in the long run?

If you deliver a code with little imperfection, it needs to be refactored soon in the next release, right?

But, when you keep repeating it while delaying code refactoring in every cycle of product release, developers find it challenging to fix complex refactoring issues in your project code base.

The growing app development project amplifies these challenges as the process involves applying a series of standardized actions to maintain the project code quality. The delayed refactoring, complex designs, insufficient testing, and time pressure result in slower app development. We collectively call it Technical Debt.

So, how to avoid such a situation?

Continue reading this article to understand more about Technical Debt, why it is the major reason behind slower app development, and how you can resolve it.

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What is Technical Debt?

In 1992, Ward Cunningham coined the term Technical Debt as,
"Shipping first-time code is like going into debt. A little debt speeds development so long as it is paid back promptly with a rewrite... The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid. Every minute spent on not-quite-right code counts as interest on that debt. Entire engineering organizations can be brought to a stand-still under the debt load of an unconsolidated implementation, object-oriented or otherwise."

Technical debt can be categorized as,

• Product debt
• Design debt
• Code debt
• Process debt

Identifying and Mitigating Technical Debt with SCRUM Principles

Here's how SCRUM principles can help identify and mitigate technical debt:

Identification:

• Daily Scrums: Short daily meetings where developers discuss challenges. Technical debt issues can surface during these discussions.
• Sprint Reviews: Regular reviews of completed work. Code quality issues that could lead to technical debt can be identified here.

Mitigation:

• Incremental Delivery: Delivering features in smaller chunks allows for quicker identification and easier fixing of technical debt before it grows.
• Focus on Working Software: Prioritizes fixing critical code issues before adding complexity, potentially reducing future technical debt.
• Adaptability: Allows for adjustments during a sprint. If technical debt becomes a major hurdle, the team can dedicate time to address it.

Reasons that slow down your app development and the best approach to overcome those issues.

1. Product debt: Unclear goal and project scope

Problem: The problems are manifested gradually because the clients or users aren’t specific about their requirements in the early stage. Many new requirements are added to the scope after the project begins.

As there is no clearly outlined scope, unnecessary things come up that slow down the pace of project delivery. Therefore it’s essential for clients to set clear expectations and developers must understand what clients are expecting.

Solution: The above problem can be solved through clear communication between developers and clients/users. It’s crucial to align the project with the client’s business needs.

Once you have your specification document ready, communicate with the clients and keep everyone informed on the project and share the status of the project throughout the development process with effective collaboration.

2. Design debt: Inconsistent app design

Problem: As the project grows, inconsistencies are added to the user interface design with the addition of new features, thus disturbing the original flow of the application. Designers find it difficult to patch up new additions in the interface which sometimes gives rise to an unprofessional look and bad user experience.

Solution: The design inconsistencies can be minimized by early investing in UI design. It helps to mitigate the design overhead by speeding up decision-making. Furthermore, keep observing users and analytics after the project goes live and implement the required changes according to observation.

3. Code debt: Complex project code

Problem: Code debt arises when the developers want to speed up app delivery during the initial stages of app development and they prioritize faster delivery over clean code development and technical implementation.

Developers face multiple difficulties in removing bad code while code refactoring such as inappropriate comments, complicated deployment, rectifying dead code, eliminating unnecessary parameters, code maintenance work, and so on. Also, a higher level of code abstraction makes the code complex through code dependency.

All these things hit the developer’s capability to manage, debug and test code.

Solution: The best solution to the above problem is implementing clean code. It helps to generate code that is stable, scalable, maintainable, and testable. It applies to all levels such as design, name conventions, comment, data structure, and source code structures.

Though implementing clean code development practices requires a lot of expertise, it’s worth it.

4. Process debt: Poor working process

Problem The way of working that slows down your ability to release software, comes under the process of debt.

Sharing your project code with the project managers, and clients, getting feedback, setting up meetings, getting approvals, maintaining documentation, and moving to the next stage, all take time. Any inefficiencies contribute to the slowdown in project delivery.

Solution Implementing automated testing and deployment approaches can solve this issue.

Best practices for avoiding technical debt in software app

Here are some of the best practices for avoiding technical debt in software application development:

1. Quality and Maintainability:

• Write clean, well-documented code: This makes it easier for developers to understand and modify the code in the future, reducing the chances of introducing new problems.

• Use coding standards and conventions: Consistent coding practices make the codebase more predictable and easier to navigate.

• Regular code reviews: Having other developers review code can identify potential issues and opportunities for improvement before they become bigger problems.

2. Design and Planning:

• Invest in good upfront design: A well-designed application is easier to build and maintain in the long run.
• Plan for future growth: Consider how the application might need to scale or change in the future, and write code that can accommodate those changes.
• Modularize your code: Break down the codebase into smaller, reusable pieces. This makes it easier to understand, maintain, and test.

3. Testing and Automation:

• Write unit tests: These tests ensure that individual units of code function as expected.
• Implement automated testing: Automate repetitive tasks like running tests, which frees up developer time and reduces the risk of regressions.
• Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD): Automate the build, test, and deployment process to catch problems early and release new features faster.

4. Version control:

• Use a version control system (like Git): This allows you to track changes to the codebase and revert to previous versions if necessary.

5. Developer Skills and Culture:

• Invest in developer training: Encourage developers to stay up-to-date with the latest technologies and best practices.
• Promote a culture of code quality: Make code quality a priority within the development team.
• Focus on refactoring: Regularly review and improve the codebase to remove technical debt.

Remember, avoiding technical debt is an ongoing process. By following these best practices, you can help ensure that your software application remains maintainable and easy to develop over time.

Deliver apps faster while cutting down technical debt with DhiWise

Every software project has a tight deadline and it’s obvious to have some debt behind it. However, this debt can propel your project toward disaster. Therefore it’s crucial to either eliminate or minimize this debt in the early stages of your project development.

Now the question is how?

Here, DhiWise can help you minimize the technical debt in the early stage of project development.

“DhiWise is a developer-centric platform that empowers developers to build web and mobile applications faster.”

Let’s look into some best features of DhiWise,

1. Multi-technology support

DhiWise supports multiple technologies including Kotlin, Flutter, Swift, and React so that developers can choose the technology they love to build their web and mobile applications using a single platform.

2. Collaborative environment

The platform is integrated with GitHub and GitLab repositories simplifying secure code sharing, management, and collaboration.

Developers can share code with the clients, other team members, and project managers and keep everyone in the loop about project status. Thus eliminating to and fro communication through emails.

3. Generates clean Code faster

Clean code is the best solution to eliminate code debt but implementing clean code requires lots of practice. But how can you implement clean code without giving extra training to your developers?

DhiWise generates clean code automatically for your applications. Thus, the generated source code is easy to understand, modify, manage and test. No need to spend time and money learning clean code.

4. Design to code in minutes

DhiWise facilitates design-to-code conversion, you can convert Figma design to code in a few steps. Moreover, the platform gives full flexibility to create and customize front-end screen components with ease.

If you have already done prototyping with the UI design, the platform will fetch the design along with the prototyping.

5. API integration

DhiWise API manager helps developers to either upload Postman files from the collection or manually create APIs.

Also, developers can use predefined APIs and integrate them with the UI components from the generated datasets.

6. Ready to use app templates and screen libraries

Developers can minimize their time to market with ready-to-use app templates and screen libraries for popular applications.

All these capabilities empower developers to build a clean, stable, and flexible app faster while minimizing technical debt.

Conclusion

Time-bound projects push developers beyond their limits to deliver apps faster. In the rush, projects are delivered on time but some corners remain unfinished leaving behind the technical debt that needs to be repaid later.

This technical debt is the major cause behind slow application development and increasing project cost and it is essential to repay it in the initial stages of project development.

DhiWise resolves this issue and enables developers to deliver apps faster to the market.

Excited to experience the advantage of app development with DhiWise? Sign up today!