Pay Down That Technical Debt

Auntie Pat Tern says we should pay with cash, or at least pay our credit cards off every month because "debt," she says, "is like fresh fish, it seems great at first but gets old fast and then it really stinks."

It's Hammer Time!

So I looked at my Salesforce org to assess the level of technical debt we had accrued and to plan how we would start paying down that debt.

Sometimes technical debt comprises the shortcuts or mistakes that no one has time to correct when a project needs to be completed. Technical debt also develops over time.  As businesses mature and change, their technical solutions can fall behind and create technical debt.

A Salesforce org can be especially prone to this since Salesforce offers a wealth of new features for all orgs three times each year and not all companies make an effort to rewrite their technical solutions based on these new features. Luckily, Salesforce offers some tools to help us assess some of the technical debt associated with our code.

First, I checked our Hammer Test Status.  The data silo gauge revealed that we still had old (and sadly a few new) unit tests that were using "seealldata=true", which we needed to update.  It also revealed a couple of tests that were failing and so needed some attention.

Next I checked the API version on our Apex Classes.  Any class that is 10 or more versions behind the current API version needed a review, both on the code side and on the process side.

The third step for me was reviewing our org's documentation for outdated information on our code.

My org review also included configuration, managed packages and basic processes, as well.

We may not be able to pay down all of our technical debt right away, but a monthly review and reminder of how it accumulates will help us develop better in the future.  And as Auntie Pat Tern says, "It's not just pay me now or pay me later, you know.  It's pay me now or pay me later with additional compounded interest!"