Great article, everybody should read it and all links in it. I especially like the comprehensive perspective (including the human factor). Additional points:

Great article, everybody should read it and all links in it. I especially like the comprehensive perspective (including the human factor). Additional points: I like the article moderates the unit testing craze. I like that he mentions integrated tests (basically testing the whole or bigger part with many different inputs) and asserts - in combination, they are more efficient than individual unit tests. Aside from tests and asserts, a third important method of ensuring quality is to have proper abstractions. They let you encode the domain assumptions and write less code more correctly in the first place. CI and test automation is good as long as it not used to replace QA as a role. Good QA is a methodical assertive nitpicker who loves to break things, which is often a different personality than developer. (I personally can somewhat switch but it takes me a week or two to get into the other role.) I am not convinced about CD. I don't think it works well when you're delivering a 3rd party software which relies on stability of some API - then the client needs to make sure they have the correct version of the 1st party product in order to have 3rd party product working reliably for them. I suspect CD actually hurts 3rd party software developers, because they now have a moving target and are between a rock and hard place. And I am not sure it leads to quality software, I think having certification at certain API version, and longer release cycle, is better for quality software. Maybe it depends on the type of software.