Jul 27, 2011

Excuse #3 - Isn't it QA's job to test my code?

Sorry for the delay in publishing this one guys, had been busy, but finally - the 3rd excuse of the "Testing: Why Bother?" series is finally up.

So... We are going to address an excuse that is a bit less commonly asked out loud, but I think many of us programmers secretly think it without even knowing.

I assume you stumbled at least once before across arguments like:
  • "Well... I could write a test for this, but QA has to perform some heavy testing on this feature anyhow, so why bother?"
  • "I don't have the environment I need to run a test for this right now, and QA have their own testing environment, it would be much more cost-effective to just leave the job of testing this to them"
  • "Our QA guys are not doing anything right now anyhow... We are on a lot of pressure and have tons of new features to implement before deadline - why not speed up things a bit by skipping the testing part and leaving it to QA?"
Well, I must admit these are all thoughts that ran through my head at least once or twice.
Here are some of my key points on what I've come to learn from my experience with other programmers and even myself cutting corners about testing the code because we're on a hurry and "QA are going to test it anyhow":