A Developer's Best Friend

QA - noun. The Developer’s best friend…

As developers, we usually take great pride in our work. We bind part of our self-esteem and self-worth to the quality of our code. Why else would we react with such aggravation when the QA tells us they found a bug?

We seldom realize that the QA who has shown us our weakness is actually our dearest friend. Think about yourself for a moment. Did you come to work thinking, 'I’m totally going to screw something up today! I bet I’ll write the hardest to track and fix bug yet!!'? Of course not, no one plans to write a bug. And I have yet to meet a developer who takes pride in the gravity of their flawed code. Generally, Software Developers want to write bug free code. If for no other reason, then to never have to see it again.

If we apply a similar lens to our friend the QA, we can see they are also motivated by the Quality of the product they produce. Heck, it’s literally in their title. Instead of responsibility for a feature, they are responsible for many features. They too bind part of their self-worth to the product rolling out the door.

Excluding companies where you pay the QA by the bug, and promote the Dev with the lowest bug count, there is seldom a conflict of interest. Each of us has a role. Each of us seeks good for the final product, hoping to make it the best we can achieve. If we, developers, took a little time to think how much the QA helps our code improve, we’d begin to understand the kind of friend we’ve had all along. Take a few moments and appreciate your QA today.