As we continue developing our software, we accumulate a growing amount of technical debt just to keep the system running. But I believe we are on the brink of an even larger issue. Cognitive debt.
Hope you enjoy this reading, all feedback is welcome.
I enjoyed reading this. I don’t have anything more constructive to say (I’m only leaving this comment because I realised that you are the person who actually wrote the linked post, and I’ve found that leaving an appreciative comment is like a super-upvote).
I like this piece because it’s another voice saying effectively the same thing as many others I respect have argued: that pressure to ship leads to poor quality, difficult to maintain code (even before AI), and that AI is just making the problem worse. It’s cool to see the conversation evolve. For example, after I first saw the term “cognitive debt” used, I saw it crop up in more and more places, as other writers seemed to conclude “this problem is similar to technical debt, but it’s distinct enough that using a different but related term is a good idea”. And even if there are multiple people arguing effectively the same thing, each person tends to tackle the problem slightly differently
Hey there! Thanks for the comment, and reading it.
I know that sometimes hearing the same voice speaking on the same topic can be problematic. But on the other side of the same coin, have fewer voices pointing to the problem is also a problem. For me, writing the blog is a way to organize my own mind and be able to create a reasoning on some topic.
And sometimes, repeating the echoed words that the industry is repeating.
Either way, thanks again for reading, and even more for the comment.