[Off Topic] Can testers and developers be friends?

I hope so since sometimes they are the same person 😂

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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