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Possibly stupid question: is automated testing actually a common practice? (self.ask_experienced_devs)

submitted 6 months ago by yournameplease to c/ask_experienced_devs

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Referring more to smaller places like my own - few hundred employees with ~20 person IT team (~10 developers).

I read enough about testing that it seems industry standard. But whenever I talk to coworkers and my EM, it's generally, "That would be nice, but it's not practical for our size and the business would allow us to slow down for that." We have ~5 manual testers, so things aren't considered "untested", but issues still frequently slip through. It's insurance software so at least bugs aren't killing people, but our quality still freaks me out a bit.

I try to write automated tests for my own code, since it seems valuable, but I avoid it whenever it's not straightforward. I've read books on testing, but they generally feel like either toy examples or far more effort than my company would be willing to spend. Over time I'm wondering if I'm just overly idealistic, and automated testing is more of a FAANG / bigger company thing.

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[–] yournameplease 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

We ~~have~~used to have a scrum master so we're already agile! /s

They want those things, sure, but I think it would take multiple weeks of dedicated work for me to set up tests on our primary system that would cover much of anything. Big investment that might enable faster future development is what I find hard to sell. I am already seen as the "automated testing guy" on my (separate) project, and it doesn't really look like I'm that much faster than anyone else.

What I've been meaning to do is start underloading my own sprint items by a day or two and try to set up some test infrastructure in my spare Fridays to show some practical use. But boy is that a hard thing to actually hold myself to.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If we end up in a project with too little test coverage, our strategy is usually to then formulate unit tests before touching old code.

So, first you figure out what the hell that old code does, then you formulate a unit test until it's green, then you make a commit. And then you tweak your unit test to include the new requirements and make the production code match it (i.e. make the unit test green again).

I am already seen as the "automated testing guy" on my (separate) project, and it doesn't really look like I'm that much faster than anyone else.

This isn't about you being faster, as you write a feature. I mean, it often does help, even during first implementation, because you can iterate much quicker than starting up the whole application. But especially for small applications, it will slow you down when you first write a feature.

Who's sped up by your automated tests are your team members and you-in-three-months.
You should definitely push for automated tests, but you need to make it clear that this needs to be a team effort for it to succeed. You're doing it as a service to everyone else.

If it's only you who's writing automated tests, then that doesn't diminish the value of your automated tests, but it will make it look like you're slower at actually completing a feature, and it will make everyone else look faster at tweaking the features you implemented. You want your management to understand that and be on board with it, so that they don't rate you badly.

[–] yournameplease 2 points 6 months ago

Who’s sped up by your automated tests are your team members and you-in-three-months.

Definitely true. I am very thankful when I fail a test and know I broke something and need to clean up after myself. Also very nice as insurance against our more "chaotic" developer(s).

I've advocated for tests as a team effort. Problem is just that we don't really have any technical leadership, just a hands-off EM and hands-off CTO. Best I get from them is "Yes, you should test your code." ...Doesn't really help when some developers just aren't interested in testing. I am warming another developer on my team up to testing, so at least I may get another developer or two on the testing kick for a bit.

And as for management rating me... I don't really worry too much. As I mentioned, hands off management. Heck, we didn't even get performance reviews last year.