4 posts tagged with "tech debt"

Feature flags are becoming a prominent part of DevOps practices and for good reason. They allow you to turn features in your live application on or off without redeploying code. You might think that something so powerful would require some rocket science-level programming to implement, but you'd be surprised to know that, at their core, feature flags are booleans and if-then-else statements.

Okay, that's an oversimplification of things, but it's true. And while there are different ways of implementing feature flags, they all share this common core. That said, let's take a broader look at feature flags and their uses in modern software development.

Feature flags (aka. feature toggles) are becoming increasingly relevant in software development as they provide the ability to toggle features on or off in production, perform a gradual rollout of features and enable A/B testing experiments.

However, an often overlooked part of this feature flagging technique is that it introduces complexity and has inherent risks when said complexity isn't properly managed. As you're using more and more feature flags within your organization, it's important to understand that some of these flags are meant to last only for a short period and should, therefore, be removed from your codebase.

Good code is one of the most valuable commodities in technology. Code quality can affect everything from code execution time and application load times, to how easy it is to maintain, read, and debug.

It can also play a significant role in your company's competitiveness. If your competitors are spending more time fixing bugs than adding features, then they're losing ground to you.

Two Technical terms that can save your project!​

Code Hygiene goes hand in hand with avoiding Tech Debt and these two should be THE backbone of your company’s philosophy!

How to not forget important flags​

There are many reasons why you don't want to keep unnecessary feature flags around you.

One way to make sure you do not forget about your old flags is by subscribing to the Stale Feature Flags Report.