Some of the opposition to testing comes down to laziness and an inability to take responsibility for bugs.
RE: laziness:
Writing test code takes 15-30% more initial investment into code, and is only useful for the x% of code which ends up causing bugs. So most individual contributors would have to put in more hours to complete the same amount of work from management. Additionally, figuring out how to test some units is not trivial, and would require learning tangential to completing tasks. And when there is a QA department to handle the more frustrating part of programming, debugging and checking for errors, it is easier for the individual contributor to offload part of their work onto somebody else.
RE: taking responsibility
Having tests break means that the source of bugs becomes more obvious. When there is an opaque bug search process, it is easier for contributors to cover their own asses, and covertly patch bugs. In office politics, perception is reality; if the backend developers are willing to cast the blame onto the front end or API clients for bugs, it looks better for the backend. Even if the bug ends up being proven as a backend bug, the initial blame damage has been done, and managers convinced who to blame first in the future.
The only arguments I've seen work are
Management recognizes, supports, and rewards quality; Quality is attained in part through testing.
Most show stopping, up till 4am, bugs are caused by poor code maintenance, and the only way to get out of stressful firefighting mode is through rigorous testing. (This argument doesn't work if the Developer enjoys the thrill or has no life outside work.)
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Some of the opposition to testing comes down to laziness and an inability to take responsibility for bugs.
RE: laziness:
Writing test code takes 15-30% more initial investment into code, and is only useful for the x% of code which ends up causing bugs. So most individual contributors would have to put in more hours to complete the same amount of work from management. Additionally, figuring out how to test some units is not trivial, and would require learning tangential to completing tasks. And when there is a QA department to handle the more frustrating part of programming, debugging and checking for errors, it is easier for the individual contributor to offload part of their work onto somebody else.
RE: taking responsibility
Having tests break means that the source of bugs becomes more obvious. When there is an opaque bug search process, it is easier for contributors to cover their own asses, and covertly patch bugs. In office politics, perception is reality; if the backend developers are willing to cast the blame onto the front end or API clients for bugs, it looks better for the backend. Even if the bug ends up being proven as a backend bug, the initial blame damage has been done, and managers convinced who to blame first in the future.
The only arguments I've seen work are