5 ms·

a waste of money to have devs test their own code? interesting.

milesvp 5y ago
I don’t know if you’ve worked with testers, but they think differently than devs. A good test org will also be slightly antagonistic to a dev team and that antagonism, plus a slight us vs them mentality can produce some amazing product results. Testers also tend to be a little cheaper. To call it a waste might be a bit reductionist but it certainly hints at some organizational inefficiencies that may be recognizable once you reach a certain size.
- UK-Al05 5y ago
  There's a difference in mentality to say its cheaper or saying its better.
mateo411 5y ago
I think developers should test their own code. They should write unittests, they should have integration tests, and running these test suites should be automated. If you are planning on keeping the code base around for a while and you are going to make changes to the codebase, then you are going to want this. Otherwise those expensive developers are going to take longer to implement the new features and they will introduce more defects into production. Testers are nice to have, but your developers need to be doing this.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  Two different disciplines though. It depends if you want to train your coders on how to test effectively. Not saying you shouldn’t and maybe there is a hidden advantage in doing so. But it’s definitely not a clearcut decision. Even if they can it’s a hat switching thing. Building something from 9-10 and then trying to break the shit out of it from 10–11 requires some mental discipline. For quality I’d rather have testers. Developers will test their own work anyway if they know shit work will be sent back.
  - schwartzworld 5y ago
    The more devs you have on a project, the more testing becomes vital. If there are tests, you can work on the code with confidence that you aren't going to unwittingly break things. Frankly, I think thorough testing makes my code better too. If you can't figure out how to test a function you just wrote, how are you going to get any real reuse out of it later? I don't do TDD, but often testing will lead me to refactor things to be clearer.

I don’t know if you’ve worked with testers, but they think differently than devs. A good test org will also be slightly antagonistic to a dev team and that antagonism, plus a slight us vs them mentality can produce some amazing product results. Testers also tend to be a little cheaper. To call it a waste might be a bit reductionist but it certainly hints at some organizational inefficiencies that may be recognizable once you reach a certain size.

UK-Al05 5y ago
There's a difference in mentality to say its cheaper or saying its better.

mateo411 5y ago

I think developers should test their own code. They should write unittests, they should have integration tests, and running these test suites should be automated. If you are planning on keeping the code base around for a while and you are going to make changes to the codebase, then you are going to want this. Otherwise those expensive developers are going to take longer to implement the new features and they will introduce more defects into production. Testers are nice to have, but your developers need to be doing this.

quickthrower2 5y ago
Two different disciplines though. It depends if you want to train your coders on how to test effectively. Not saying you shouldn’t and maybe there is a hidden advantage in doing so. But it’s definitely not a clearcut decision. Even if they can it’s a hat switching thing. Building something from 9-10 and then trying to break the shit out of it from 10–11 requires some mental discipline. For quality I’d rather have testers. Developers will test their own work anyway if they know shit work will be sent back.
- schwartzworld 5y ago
  The more devs you have on a project, the more testing becomes vital. If there are tests, you can work on the code with confidence that you aren't going to unwittingly break things. Frankly, I think thorough testing makes my code better too. If you can't figure out how to test a function you just wrote, how are you going to get any real reuse out of it later? I don't do TDD, but often testing will lead me to refactor things to be clearer.