this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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How do you get your team to write tests? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by kersplort@programming.dev to c/experienced_devs@programming.dev
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I'm like a test unitarian. Unit tests? Great. Integration tests? Awesome. End to end tests? If you're into that kind of thing, go for it. Coverage of lines of code doesn't matter. Coverage of critical business functions does. I think TDD can be a cult, but writing software that way for a little bit is a good training exercise.

I'm a senior engineer at a small startup. We need to move fast, ship new stuff fast, and get things moving. We've got CICD running mocked unit tests, integration tests, and end to end tests, with patterns and tooling for each.

I have support from the CTO in getting more testing in, and I'm able to use testing to cover bugs and regressions, and there's solid testing on a few critical user path features. However, I get resistance from the team on getting enough testing to prevent regressions going forward.

The resistance is usually along lines like:

  • You shouldn't have to refactor to test something
  • We shouldn't use mocks, only integration testing works.
    • Repeat for test types N and M
  • We can't test yet, we're going to make changes soon.

How can I convince the team that the tools available to them will help, and will improve their productivity and cut down time having to firefight?

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[–] chickentendrils@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

I definitely believe in tests but it's always an uphill battle to convince resistant devs. Even when the implication of failures for end users could mean death or spending years in a cage.

In businesses, I've only seen testing take off when it was properly budgeted for devs who already believed in it, or when the org hired test developer(s). And that was an org that had 100+ "testers" contracted, who'd literally click through the screens and note defects. So automated testing was an obvious cost savings.