The love-hate relationship between development and testing

[[228041]]

IT practitioners are always in dire straits, and they are most afraid of new or changed requirements for products. In work, they often encounter such situations. Seeing that the quality of the test code is not ideal, the launch time may be delayed.

• The manager asked: When will it be available online?
• The developer said: I don’t know, it depends on when the test can be completed.
• The tester said: I don’t know, it depends on when the development can complete the changes.

So a group of people were in a trance, I pushed you, you pushed me. When will it be online, God knows.

Do you think the manager will accept such an answer? No way, what is the overall plan for? You have to launch the product on time even if you work overtime until your kidneys are weak. So the development and testing staff happily finished their takeaway and started working again.

To be fair, the work of development and testing complement each other, and their purpose is only one: to ensure the quality of software. No matter what the reason is for the delay in the release of the version, it is always the team's fault.

No matter how much the development and testing teams love and hate each other, the entire software project must be completed. In this process, it is inevitable that the development and testing teams will complain about each other, and as they complain, their relationship changes.

【1】 From love to hatred

Practitioners who have just entered the IT industry must have heard the legend of programmers. As for what kind of legend it is, they must have understood the relationship between development and testing. Every development and testing employee is friendly at the beginning, but as the project progresses, the development and testing gradually become antagonistic due to the tight development and testing time or bug fixes.

There is a blog post on the CSDN website that describes the relationship between development and testing, which lists several scenarios:

• Developers say that testing is a hassle and that customers will never use the software the way they want.
• Tests say that problems always occur under seemingly extreme conditions, and users always inadvertently encounter seemingly extreme and impossible conditions.
• Developers say they spend more time testing exceptions than testing the main process, and don’t know what to prioritize
• The tester said that the developers never consider the tester's feelings and throw the work to us without even testing it.
• Developers say, I have tested everything, why do we need testers?
• The tester said, you didn't even test for such an obvious problem, you treat our test as a trash can?
• …

In fact, there are many similar problems at work. Who is at fault? Everyone has their reasons, but the development and testing perspectives are different. Arguments over certain issues at work are inevitable, but if these arguments are allowed to develop and are directed at both the matter and the person, the relationship between development and testing will gradually become antagonistic.

Some leaders even like to see the development and testing teams quarrel, and actively promote the antagonistic relationship between the development team and the testing team. This is the case with my last company. At first, the development team and the testing team were friendly friends who complained about each other every day, until the new leader came. The first thing the new leader did when he took office was to turn to the development and testing teams: How come the relationship between the testing and development teams is so harmonious?

Leaders hope that developers and testers will argue, and the more intense the argument, the better, so as to improve testing efficiency and bug fix rate.

After that, the development and testing had more and more arguments, ranging from whether to fix the bug to the development mocking the test for not understanding the technology, from the slow progress of development to the compression of the test time to the delay of the test and the poor development quality, sometimes even escalating to personal attacks. As a result, the development and testing entered a cold war period, with no communication in daily work and daily picking faults in order to defeat each other.

I don't know if this working model really improves the quality of software, but the office environment and working mood are depressing. Whether it is spontaneous criticism between developers and testers or the opposition relationship promoted by leaders, it is an unhealthy working environment. Competition does exist, but there is also cooperation. Developers and testers should take their work seriously, but they should not take people too seriously.

There are cases where the working relationship between developers and testers leads to conflict, and there are also cases where developers and testers become a couple because they complain about each other.

【2】 From killing each other to loving each other

My good friend Dapan is an out-and-out IT straight guy, who spends his daily life writing code and complaining.

Although I am a tester, he often complains about the test in front of me. Yes, as a good friend, he directly complains about his colleagues in front of me, which shows how straight he is...

I admit that some of his complaints are true, but I disagree with some of them:

• Testing always tests situations that are impossible to exist in the actual formal environment, or even erroneous operations.
• When testing the deployment environment, I am always asked to read the deployment documents carefully. Why do I always ask developers to write deployment documents?
• The test is always brought up to ZenTao without being clear, some of them are not fundamental bugs, they are clearly designed this way
• Testers always bring up demand issues to our developers
• The testing technology is too poor and the positioning is not accurate.

I thought that Da Pan must really hate testers for complaining like this. But the fact is that he ended up falling in love with the tester. And it was Xiao Min, the tester he often complained about. When I asked her the reason, I found out that Xiao Min also often criticized him, and they developed feelings for each other. So how did Xiao Min criticize him:

• Development is always done without following the requirements document, but always done freely
• The documentation written by the developer is unclear and no one can understand it except him.
• Common problems must be raised one by one, and developers will fix them all. Otherwise, only the one that is raised will be fixed.
• Development always focuses only on normal processes, and abnormal process operations are not considered at all

Although not as good as developers, testers at least know that some bugs are easy to fix. Why don’t developers solve them?

Dapan said that once when they were complaining about technical issues, they somehow mentioned Python, and Dapan happened to solve the problem Xiaomin encountered when doing automated testing. From then on, Xiaomin looked at Dapan with starry eyes, and Dapan was shy when he looked at Xiaomin's starry eyes, and the two of them were shyly together. So Dapan and Xiaomin became love complaints, silently spreading dog food in the office.

This combination of development and testing is a bit dreamy, and it still follows the plot of girls worshipping boys and boys helping girls. However, the changes in their relationship at work are all developed without affecting their work. Even when they are in love, they still treat bugs seriously and selflessly during the development and testing process.

Whether it is development or testing, it is just a job. You should work hard but not let your personal feelings get in the way. If you accidentally develop hatred, please distinguish between public and private affairs and stab the villain in your heart; if you develop indescribable feelings, please keep a low profile. After all, IT work is already very hard, and you can't abuse it anymore.