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Show HN: Swimming in Tech Debt

(helpthisbook.com)
157 points loumf | 2 comments | 05 Sep 25 05:33 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source

This is the first half of my book, “Swimming in Tech Debt”. It is available at a pre-launch sale price of $0.99 (https://loufranco.com/tech-debt-book).

I have been working on it since January 2024. It is based on some posts in my blog, but expands on my ideas quite a bit.

In September 2024, excerpts appeared in Gergely Orosz’s Pragmatic Engineer newsletter, which helped me get a lot of feedback that expanded the book from my initial idea. This half is about what I expected to do before that —- the rest of the book goes into team and CTO practices.

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conartist6 ◴[05 Sep 25 11:51 UTC] No.45137491[source]▶
The swimming analogy is not a strong start. You disavow an obvious and strong analogy to monetary debt right away while dumping us into this strange metaphor that depends on us having an intuition for how you think and feel about swimming, and specifically swimming laps? Instead of setting the stakes high right off the bat you've lowered them and lost my attention with this wandering train of thought that has no clear relationship to the topic you wish to discuss...
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loumf ◴[05 Sep 25 14:03 UTC] No.45138717[source]▶
Thanks for the feedback. The reason that I put up half the book and offered it for $1 to start was to make sure that people that didn't like it wouldn't buy it.

I struggled with this opening and it definitely could have been better.

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conartist6 ◴[05 Sep 25 14:44 UTC] No.45139195[source]▶
Sorry, I'm a notoriously harsh critic. That probably comes from being homeschooled by two English major parents (a poet-professor and a journalist).
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1. loumf ◴[05 Sep 25 14:50 UTC] No.45139246[source]▶
No worries at all. I really do appreciate constructive feedback. I put every draft of the book out there that I could, and this is my best version of making the book I wanted to make that resonated with at least some people.

I totally get that it's not for everyone.

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2. volkk ◴[05 Sep 25 15:37 UTC] No.45139804[source]▶
I think people are being extreme pedants at best, disingenuous at worst. I think your analogy is clear, and the people that can't connect because they don't understand swimming is in the minority.