What’s the difference between legacy code and technical debt? Serious question. If you have one you always have the other?

Or current code - i.e., the kind you write to meet the sprint deadline that just barely works, but Monday we're onto a different feature

How true! So it kind of means that legacy is actually up to last hour of committed code... Maybe it's our perception of time that's the problem.

Haha. It is definitely tricky to define "legacy" & I think it's often in the eye of the beholder. I don't think the age of the codebase is always a factor - really simple/stable code can live decades. I'd say maybe "code that we'd prefer to rewrite/refactor if we had the time"

Would that everyone thought more carefully (or knew how to) about our code, potential longevity, of course the commenting and cleanup of hacks and old bugs as you mentioned and knew what risks legacy issues can cause! It's at subject for at least a book, a talk, and courseware!

For sure! Not the sexiest subject, but I've worked at a couple of early-stage startups that would arguably still be here if only for better code maintenance habits. A team can get crushed under the weight of technical debt. Maybe I'll write the book, you write the foreword? 😉