We Can Never Skip Quality

We can never skip quality.

I keep seeing engineers advocate for a so-called “start-up mode” where shipping fast means cutting corners and dealing with quality later. This is what Robert Martin described as The Start-Up Trap, a fallacy that mistakes recklessness for speed.

Technical debt is not about skipping discipline. It is not an excuse to be sloppy. Rapid iteration means delivering with a limited understanding, consciously incurring that debt, discovering, learning, and paying that debt down. It does not mean sacrificing the integrity of our code. Technical debt is an agile operating model, not a problem. Neglecting it becomes the problem.

That is the real lesson behind Cunningham’s metaphor.

We should think of our systems less like sloths lazily hanging from a branch and more like firefighters, immune systems, or SWAT squads: responsive, adaptable, and always ready.

Cleanliness in software is not about perfection or elegance. It is what enables fast and frequent iterations. If we need to respond to feedback quickly, our system must be clean.

If a hospital needs to operate on multiple patients, the last thing it wants is to start sterilising the operating theatre in the middle of surgery. The same applies to software. If we let things decay, we will be scrambling to fix hygiene issues when we should be delivering value.

Speed and quality are not at odds. Clean code is not about aesthetics. It is about survival.

Originally posted on LinkedIn.