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Joel is specifically referring to the kind of testers that Microsoft had at the time the Joel Test was written (Aug 2000). At that time, for Windows and Office

Joel is specifically referring to the kind of testers that Microsoft had at the time the Joel Test was written (Aug 2000). At that time, for Windows and Office, Microsoft had testers who would write their own test plans (and then execute the tests themselves). This is not the low-paid manual labor you're thinking of where a test manager writes a test plan and then delegates it to folks who are expected to just follow instructions. The "manual labor" style of testing was/is typical of game dev companies, where it's easy to trick inexperienced kids into working for very cheap or even free, just to have early access to upcoming games and the (mostly illusory) opportunity to land a "real job" in the game industry.

dgb23 5y ago
In some companies these game testers are treated as second class citizens in every way imaginable. If I remember correctly, JS very much cherished skilled testers and emphasized that they ought to be experienced, that they’re doing a very hard job. I personally never worked with dedicated testers, but I appreciate both lower level automated tests for critical code, and higher level acceptance, even manual tests by domain experts. Some of the best feedback I got was from people who can’t program but are much closer to the real world problems.
kragen 5y ago
Thank you for adding that context! I didn't know that. In https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-steps-to-better-code/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-s... Joel lays out his reasoning: > If your team doesn’t have dedicated testers, at least one for every two or three programmers, you are either shipping buggy products, or you’re wasting money by having $100/hour programmers do work that can be done by $30/hour testers. Skimping on testers is such an outrageous false economy that I’m simply blown away that more people don’t recognize it. I still think jobs for people to "write their own plans and then execute the tests themselves" have mostly been automated out of existence, and they were still low-paid in Joel's mind.
- baud147258 5y ago
  > I still think jobs for people to "write their own plans and then execute the tests themselves" have mostly been automated out of existence, Where I work, it's complicated to automate a lot of things, mostly because of the various installation configuration and how testing has to rely on external hardware like HSM and smartcards. And so the QA write the test plans and execute them, with automation testing non-regression on the most current use cases > and they were still low-paid in Joel's mind. Though I think the QA people at my current job at less paid than the equivalent on the dev side.
  - kragen 5y ago
    Hopefully they are paid more than the 30 cents on the dollar Joel is citing!

dgb23 5y ago

In some companies these game testers are treated as second class citizens in every way imaginable. If I remember correctly, JS very much cherished skilled testers and emphasized that they ought to be experienced, that they’re doing a very hard job. I personally never worked with dedicated testers, but I appreciate both lower level automated tests for critical code, and higher level acceptance, even manual tests by domain experts. Some of the best feedback I got was from people who can’t program but are much closer to the real world problems.

kragen 5y ago

Thank you for adding that context! I didn't know that. In https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-steps-to-better-code/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-s... Joel lays out his reasoning: > If your team doesn’t have dedicated testers, at least one for every two or three programmers, you are either shipping buggy products, or you’re wasting money by having $100/hour programmers do work that can be done by $30/hour testers. Skimping on testers is such an outrageous false economy that I’m simply blown away that more people don’t recognize it. I still think jobs for people to "write their own plans and then execute the tests themselves" have mostly been automated out of existence, and they were still low-paid in Joel's mind.

baud147258 5y ago
> I still think jobs for people to "write their own plans and then execute the tests themselves" have mostly been automated out of existence, Where I work, it's complicated to automate a lot of things, mostly because of the various installation configuration and how testing has to rely on external hardware like HSM and smartcards. And so the QA write the test plans and execute them, with automation testing non-regression on the most current use cases > and they were still low-paid in Joel's mind. Though I think the QA people at my current job at less paid than the equivalent on the dev side.
- kragen 5y ago
  Hopefully they are paid more than the 30 cents on the dollar Joel is citing!