I coined the term "technical debt" to describe a software development strategy that I thought was newly available with object-oriented programming. It now seems an ideal that may never be fully understood first because so many misinterpret it and second because the technology that made it attractive is undervalued by the industry in favor of more brute force solutions.
Melissa Duffield of O'Reilly Media induced my return to this subject. I may be stubborn in my willingness to clarify that which is attributed to me. I hope she finds some benefit.
Aside: I wrote once that questions didn't work well in the asynchronous conversations supported by wiki. Better to write what you know of a subject and leave it to others to fill in the missing details. This too was misinterpreted and dubbed "Cunningham's Law": post a wrong answer to solicit a correct one. That the wrong quote has not been corrected disproves the law as stated.