The True Danger To North America: Unmanaged & Embedded Infrastructural Technical Debt

via Alexis C. Madrigal - writing for The Atlantic - comes this prescient piece, targeting technical debt within the United States's physical infrastructure. Quite likely, the single , most dangerous and looming threat to our way of life. Read and watch your FearMeterⓇ redline... Oh, and given the interconnected nature of all this, the same holds true for Canada's, and Estados Unidos Mexicanos' infrastructures...

"A kind of toxic debt is embedded in much of the infrastructure that America built during the 20th century. For decades, corporate executives, as well as city, county, state, and federal officials, not to mention voters, have decided against doing the routine maintenance and deeper upgrades to ensure that electrical systems, roads, bridges, dams, and other infrastructure can function properly under a range of conditions." - via Alexis C. Madrigal - writing for The Atlantic

QOTD Grady Booch →

Grady Booch on Technical Debt

"The concept of technical debt is central to understanding the forces that weigh upon systems, for it often explains where, how, and why a system is stressed. In cities, repairs on infrastructure are often delayed and incremental changes are made rather than bold ones. So it is again in software-intensive systems. Users suffer the consequences of capricious complexity, delayed improvements, and insufficient incremental change; the developers who evolve such systems suffer the slings and arrows of never being able to write quality code because they are always trying to catch up." — Grady Booch