I don't think anyone's saying that any time you encounter something which needs fixing you should drop your current work, open up the ticketing system and type out a detailed description there. It's just that the TODO comments shouldn't be part of your final commit (or equivalent).

Think of it like those little `print(f"foo is {foo}")` statements you add or the code you comment out while debugging - you use them to quickly develop piece of functionality, then you back them out before `git commit`. This is the point where you'd collect them together and create the tickets - your local work is "done" and you're doing a final review.

That's a fair point!

Edit: No I thought about it, and I changed my mind again. The TODO comments are primarily for the benefit of the subsequent readers, so they're not having to do so much exegesis and assorted WTFing. If you only have that info in the issue tracker, it's only available to the person dealing with that issue, not the people who have to deal with that code in the course of other maintenance.