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# Sources of Technical Debt
- URL: https://nolongerset.com/sources-of-technical-debt/
- Published: 2021-01-16T16:52:50.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-08T13:06:45.000Z
- Description: Dealing with technical debt is no fun. It's better to avoid it in the first place. To help with that, here's a list of common sources of technical debt.
- Author: Mike Wolfe
- Tags: Intermediate, #Import 2026-05-20 02:59

Technical debt is the accumulation of a series of poor design choices--or poor implementation of good design choices--that makes ongoing maintenance and future changes more difficult than need be.

## Common Sources of Technical Debt

Listed below are several common sources of technical debt. I'll explore each one in more depth in future articles. Links will be added accordingly.

- [Old code left in place](https://nolongerset.com/old-code-left-in-place/)
- [Old fields left in place](https://nolongerset.com/old-fields-left-in-place/)
- [Denormalized database tables](https://nolongerset.com/denormalized-database-tables/)
- [Coding before designing](https://nolongerset.com/coding-before-designing/)
- [Overuse of global state](https://nolongerset.com/overuse-of-global-state/)
- [Overly clever code](https://nolongerset.com/overly-clever-code/)

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