Talk of code quality, paying down technical debt, and software craftsmanship are popular these days. But do these things actually offer any business value?

Think back to the last time you had to make a change to some software you didn’t write, or a system you didn’t build. How easy was it?

I’d be willing to bet a significant sum it wasn’t much fun. You probably said things like “What were they thinking?” as you muddled your way through a jumble of misnamed classes.

This is obviously the cost of low quality, of technical debt, of poor craftsmanship.

So the value of high code quality is code that’s easy to work on, easy to change. Does this have business value?

It does, if and only if it allows the business to deliver working user features faster.

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