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Discussion on: What gives you a false sense of certainty/security/...?

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briwa profile image
briwa • Edited

Sorry for going slightly off-topic... IMO anything with a purpose technically can give us a false sense of security. Bike lanes make us think that it's always safe to ride bikes on it, which in fact it's not. Automated testing makes us think that the code is always foolproof and bug-free, while in fact it's not (depending on how you write them, the rest of the processes, PR review sessions, etc).

Maybe we should instead lower down our expectations? When you ride your bike on a bike lane, you know that it should be safe to some degree, but not always, but of course you would always still have to keep an eye of your surrounding, regardless of whether you're on a bike lane or not, and same goes for the rest of the people on the road. When you're using a code with 100% coverage, you know that you have the confidence to ship/refactor the code to some degree, but not always, so that you would still need to stick to best practices, improve the code over time, paying the most attention in PR reviews, regardless of whether the test is doing its job or not.

Furthermore, making less assumption is also critical. If you're not sure about what degree of security one can give us, ask, or do some research. That way, you know what you're signing up for.

Just my two cents.

TL:DR; We get false sense of security IMO because we didn't know enough and/or we expected too much.