Over my dead body!
11-21-2013 by Sebastian Schürmann
Ever since I started with XP and especially Testing, there is a pattern evolving that works like this
“The Agency”
When I worked in a “Agency” and wanted to do Unittesting, TDD, Application Testing in order to achieve what you can achieve with it, my Bosses and Senior-Colleagues told me:
- Too much Time to invest
- Will slow down development cycles
- Not working in our specific environment
- But over there, in “The Big Enterprise”, they do it, the have the Use-Case for High Quality
I kept on babbling my TDD, Refactoring, fowlerish crazytalk and finally applied for a position with “The Big Enterprise”
The Big Enterprise
When I worked in “The Big Enterprise” and wanted to do Unittesting, TDD, Application Testing in order to achieve what you can achieve with it, my Bosses told me
- Too much Time to invest
- Will slow down development cycles
- Not working in our specific environment
- But over there, in “The Startup”, they do it, the have the Use-Case for High Quality
I kept on babbling my TDD, Refactoring, fowlerish crazytalk and our Team applied it (Kudos to my Boss who simply let us do it - Tank you Stefan!) and finally went to work in a startup
The Startup
When I worked in “The Startup” and wanted the Teams to do Unittesting, TDD, Application Testing in order to achieve what you can achieve with it, my Bosses and Colleagues told me:
- Too much Time to invest
- Will slow down development cycles
- Not working in our specific environment
- But over there, in “The Agency”, they do it, they have the Use-Case for High Quality
I kept on babbling my TDD, Refactoring, fowlerish crazytalk and wrote this Blogpost ;)
There is NO alternative to high Quality
Over the last 13 years, the time I create Sourcecode in a professional environment, I have heard the same argument all over again and again. And I saw all of them failing with quality: Big Enterprise, The Agency, The Startup. They all told me the same Story. They ALL were WRONG. I realized one thing: High quality is nothing you ask your boss for, you do it, you don’t even get into the discussion if it pays off or not. Either the company is committed to high quality code, that steadily improves or it is doomed. Either the company knows science or it doesn’t . If it does, it will go for quality. If it does not, it is doomed. Like a cancer patient using Globuli and Crystals for healing.
Crappy code will fail your customers, your Business, your Shareholders, your Investors and it will fail YOU. Miserably, every day. And dear Developers and people around them: This is all your Responsibility. Every day and you can change it. Every day you can decide for Quality or somethings else. I realized this:
As a person, taking pride in my craft, using the tools that the modern development lifecycle provides, I have the sole Responsibility to work with these tools or walk away. This way or: Over my dead body.