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madhu
madhu

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[Off Topic] Can testers and developers be friends?

Top comments (9)

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sudiukil profile image
Quentin Sonrel

I hope so since sometimes they are the same person 😂

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madhu profile image
madhu

hahahaha exactly :D

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Marko Bjelac

Hi, this is my first write-up on Dev.to so it might as well be a rant.

(Before I start - this doesn't seem to me [Off Topic] at all.)

This is what my ideal IT world looks like:

The only testers are exploration testers. These people work closely with customers. They have the best collective understanding of the product matched only by it's expert users.

Their testing effort itself is a mixture of pair-working with customers on using the product and solo (or pairing with other testers) exploring the product's usage scenarios (user journeys). The result of this activity is composed of new feature ideas on one end of the spectrum and complete product pivoting at the other.

The rest of the tests are all automated and all written by developers, preferably in a test-driven development workflow. (Feel free to ask me about it. ;))

In this world, testers are an integral part of the Agile feedback loop, serving as a "lubricant" between developers delivering the product and customers using it. As such they are a great help in interpreting customer's needs and wishes. Any developer who has experience with getting feedback from a customer would definitely be friends with such testers!

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Ben Halpern

I'd hope so!! If you can't be friends with people helping make the software great, can you be friends with anyone?

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madhu profile image
madhu

Very True :)

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Adrian B.G.

I didn't knew they are not ... but I can imagine that in some environments there can be big differences between them, like having different teams in different buildings and communicating only trough managers, with different priorities and ways to do things.

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rhymes

Yes, I don't see why not :-D

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simonhaisz profile image
simonhaisz

If your dev and test groups relationship is adversarial that is a toxic culture and nothing good will come from it. Sounds like a failure of leadership to me.

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José Aponte

Yes, Of course! My best friend is Tester and I'm a developer. So, the synergy is pretty awesome!