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How do I convince my company to add tests for FE? (self.programming)

submitted 11 months ago by nitefox to c/[email protected]

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

We are in a very funny situation where I just spent two weeks fixing FE bugs and there are so many left. I asked to add integration tests but the answer was “no”, cause we can’t test the UI and all of that.

So the proposed solution was to be more careful, except I’m careful but testing whole website parts or the whole website is not feasible. What can I do?

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You need to create a list of incidents that reached customers. Create a matrix that has the incident ID, the link to the incident documentation and the type of test that would have caught the incident.

Then they'll see that their incidents would have been caught by the tests you want to. push instead of an angry customer.

[–] nitefox 7 points 11 months ago (3 children)

They know. We have had a production website being literally unusable, sucking up a lot of resources for a bug.

We have a client which is MAD cause the project is riddled with bugs, but the solution somehow is paying more attention. Except that it clearly isn't feasible to pay more attention when you have to check, recheck and check again the same thing over and over... They say it's a waste cause you can't catch UI, and you will spend the same amount of time NOT writing tests; obviously this is all crap, but they somehow think they are smarter than google or any other small or big company that do write test

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

We have a client which is MAD cause the project is riddled with bugs, but the solution somehow is paying more attention. Except that it clearly isn’t feasible to pay more attention when you have to check, recheck and check again the same thing over and over…

By definition, automated testing means paying more attention, and doing it so well that the process is automated.

They say it’s a waste cause you can’t catch UI (...)

Show them a working test that's catching UI bugs. It's hard to argue against facts.

but they somehow think they are smarter than google or any other small or big company that do write test

Don't sell a solution because others are doing it. Sell a solution because it's a solution to the problem they are experiencing, and it's in their best interests to solve it. Appeals to authority don't work on everyone.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Show them a working test that's catching UI bugs. It's hard to argue against facts.

Ooooh you wouldn't believe how easy it is for some people to argue against facts.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Who's saying this? Other programmers or management?

Programmers might listen to reason, but might be very set in their ways. Some that don't want it might even sabotage it and write crap tests that don't do shit like test that true == true or skip all of them. Know your crowd. If it's a crowd that like copying the latest and greatest, quote something google or facebook did or said. If they're old-school, find some old-ass programmer that loves tests.

Management listen to money unless they're incompetent. Calculate the time it took to resolve certain bugs, estimate the hourly-rate of people, compare that to how much time it takes to write tests, but make it clear that not all bugs can be caught. Maybe even find an article or blog from some manager/CTO/technical lead at another company talking about how bug count dropped or something.

If it's a free for all, add tests yourself.

If they're overbearing, bro, look for another job. A bad culture fit is a bad culture fit and there's no need to fight that. It'll be a learning experience too: not everybody can be convinced and not every company is for you.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Maybe a response to their 'solution' would be to ask them if they were under the impression you weren't being careful/paying attention before the bugs occurred?