The problem of handoffs makes this work far from cheap.
And tests are not dumb work. TDD uses them to establish clarity, helping people understand what they will deliver rather than running chaotic experiments.
Highly paid people should be able to figure out how to optimize and make code easy to change, rather than ignoring technical debt and making others pay for it.
QA is just postponing fixing the real problem - hard to change the code.
The best QA people I've worked with were effective before, during, and after implementation - they worked hand in hand with me both to shape features testably, work with me on the implementation for the harness for additional testing they wanted to do beyond what was useful for development, and followed up with assistance for finding and fixing bugs and using regression tests to prevent the category of error from happening again.
At the very least I want someone in QA doing end-to-end testing using e.g. a browser or a UI framework driver for non-web software, but there's so much more they do than that. In the same way I respect the work of frontend, backend, infrastructure, and security engineers, I think quality engineering is its own specialized field. I think we're all poorer for the fact that it's viewed as a dumping ground or "lesser"
I cannot believe the excuse for why shift-left QA is “not working” is that Amazon hires developers who can’t learn basic testing skills that QA engineers picked up in three months. If developers can’t write valid code for tests, that’s on the organization, not on the practice.
The author forgot to mention the costs of handoffs, which paid off all those tiny learning investments.
Shift-left has over 30 years of proof as one of the most effective ways to build reliable software.
P.S. This isn’t an ACM article; it’s a strongly opinionated post based on personal experience.
P.P.S. I'm not against QA, but make them as bug/quality hunters, instead of toil.
You can easily build your own clear, simple DSL with Minitest, Pytest, or JUnit - no overthinking needed. Engineers can whip up more readable and reliable tests quickly. Since only engineers are writing tests, there's no need for unnecessary complications.
CodePilot delivers the most effective performance for its cost.
After trying other options like Continue + deepseek-v2, I found that the expense of hosting a bigger local version of LLM is too high to match CodePilot's performance.
Played with Continue + Yi-Coder too - requires a lot of time to clarify requests to generate valid code.
Some time back, I was tasked with sharing my thoughts on sustaining an out-staffed venture with outsourced cartage services and onboarding 200 to 400 developers within 3 years. What started as a blog post has now evolved into a novel-like narrative, adding a new layer of depth and intrigue to the topic.
It was enjoyable and challenging to intertwine tech tips and life experiences into a novel-esque format. I successfully expressed complex and technical concepts, making the writing exciting and witty.
Please give me at least 100 words of your opinion. Did you find the article interesting and clear enough?
Your feedback is invaluable to me. I want you to know that your critical assessment is welcome.
And tests are not dumb work. TDD uses them to establish clarity, helping people understand what they will deliver rather than running chaotic experiments.
Highly paid people should be able to figure out how to optimize and make code easy to change, rather than ignoring technical debt and making others pay for it.
QA is just postponing fixing the real problem - hard to change the code.