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I've seen bad codebases rightfully elevated to greatness because of their test suite. The confidence it adds allows new people to make changes much faster.
by anotherhue 3y ago
I've seen bad codebases rightfully elevated to greatness because of their test suite.
The confidence it adds allows new people to make changes much faster.
- DragonStrength 3y agoI've seen great teams grind to a halt because of edicts. The elevation of process over results is demoralizing to builders.
- jameshart 3y agoBut builder morale is not a product that generates revenue
- DragonStrength 3y agoNeither does process. Product velocity to zero for the sake of a management metric is a good way to kill revenue while getting some managers promoted.
- anotherhue 3y agoSure, but I've seen enough premadonnas walk away from a tyre fire that fed their ego to build that I don't take their egos too seriously. Stifling process? No, unwavering diligence? Yes.
- DragonStrength 3y agoSure, but I've seen enough prima donna middle managers who fed their ego by enforcing process to know the pragmatism of builders is less harmful. I'll take a pragmatist who understands when 94% or 60% is good enough test coverage over the manager who demands 100%. I'm positive I know who has the bigger ego there. Perhaps you're reading your own experience into this, but I pretty clearly set up a scenario, and yes, I do think there's a lot of ego in anyone demanding 100% coverage, especially if they aren't writing the code.
- anotherhue 3y agoDefinitely, I'm happy with anything over 50%.
- DragonStrength 3y agoSo, you disagreed with the article, agreed with me, but decided to leave a pithy comment giving the impression I was arguing for the kind of dogmatism the article advocates? Cool. Probably don't do that.
- hinkley 3y agoConfidence is only sexy when it’s deserved. People who jump straight to 100% coverage often cheat, and now we have to manually inspect all of the tests to see if they are actual tests. Sometimes life is easier when you are seeing that there are spots that need more tests because coverage is only 85% in a file.
- anotherhue 3y agoThose people are shown out.
- morelisp 3y agoUnless you have a lot of resources to do in-depth code review of tests, a good automated mutation testing pipeline, or a dedicated testing team, this kind of behavior can take a very long time to root out (especially if they are more or less competent otherwise).
- hinkley 3y agoNice work if you can get it. There are at least 3 grades of fudging the numbers that I've encountered. Blatant is only one of them. "Wishful thinking" has many more practitioners.