I worked for an actual QA department that produced actual documentation and ran actual full scale QA cycles.
In the past 15 years, I have seen that practice all but fully disappear and be replaced by people who click at things until they find 1 thing, have a verbal meeting vaguely describing it, and repeat 2 to 3 times a day.
IMO, that isn’t QA. It’s being lazy, illiterate, and whiny while making the dev do ALL of the actual work.
When I departed QA myself, it was in the onset of automation.
In return, when the QA jobs disappeared, I learned basic scripting and started automating BI processes.
So, I would say:
I should hope modern QA departments (as I am told they exist) are automated and share both their tests and their results with devs in an efficient manner.
I don’t think QA departments really exist today in a substantive way, and if they do, it isnt in as cooperative of a fashion as described in 1.
I still have observed a world where QA went bye bye. Planning? Drafting a Scope of Work? Doing a proper analysis of the solution you are seeking, fleshing it out, and setting a comprehensive list of firm requirements that define delivery of said solution? Offering the resources to test the deliverable against the well documented and established requirements to give the all clear before the solution is delivered?
Doesn’t exist anymore, and modern “QA” is being the lemming who sits in meetings as listens to the management, then schedules meetings to sit and complain at the Dev about how they aren’t “hitting the mark” (Because it was about 4 feet directly in front of them when they published, and is now at 5 erratically placed spaces behind them).
I think it’s probably because we’ve shifted away from shipping software as a product, and onto software as a service. I.E. in the 90s if win 95 irreversibly corrupted, that would be devastating to sales.
But today with windows 11? Just roll it out in one of the twenty three testing branches you have and see what happens, and if shit does break. Just work around it. It’ll be fine. Even if something does happen, you can most of the time, fix it and roll out a new update.
And i also think it’s moved to be more team centric, rather than department centric. A lot of the theory is probably more senior team led type responsibility. While everyone writing the code can chip in and add some as well. Developers knowing how to write secure code helps, so they should theoretically also be capable of QA themselves to a degree.
Also there’s a lot more money in shipping shit out the door, than there is in shipping a functional product, unfortunately.
Thank you for your TED talk defining enshitification.
Middle management bloat.
Edit: Bonus points for
Developers knowing how to write secure code helps, so they should theoretically also be capable of QA themselves to a degree.
Which is straight up just saying “why don’t the devs just do it themselves? I’m busy with meetings to whine back and forth with other middle management.”
I guess I’m just being a snob here.
I worked for an actual QA department that produced actual documentation and ran actual full scale QA cycles.
In the past 15 years, I have seen that practice all but fully disappear and be replaced by people who click at things until they find 1 thing, have a verbal meeting vaguely describing it, and repeat 2 to 3 times a day.
IMO, that isn’t QA. It’s being lazy, illiterate, and whiny while making the dev do ALL of the actual work.
a lot of QA has probably been automated, The entirety of SQL for instance, is using an automated testing suite to ensure functionality.
That’s a fair point.
When I departed QA myself, it was in the onset of automation.
In return, when the QA jobs disappeared, I learned basic scripting and started automating BI processes.
So, I would say:
I should hope modern QA departments (as I am told they exist) are automated and share both their tests and their results with devs in an efficient manner.
I don’t think QA departments really exist today in a substantive way, and if they do, it isnt in as cooperative of a fashion as described in 1.
I still have observed a world where QA went bye bye. Planning? Drafting a Scope of Work? Doing a proper analysis of the solution you are seeking, fleshing it out, and setting a comprehensive list of firm requirements that define delivery of said solution? Offering the resources to test the deliverable against the well documented and established requirements to give the all clear before the solution is delivered?
Doesn’t exist anymore, and modern “QA” is being the lemming who sits in meetings as listens to the management, then schedules meetings to sit and complain at the Dev about how they aren’t “hitting the mark” (Because it was about 4 feet directly in front of them when they published, and is now at 5 erratically placed spaces behind them).
I think it’s probably because we’ve shifted away from shipping software as a product, and onto software as a service. I.E. in the 90s if win 95 irreversibly corrupted, that would be devastating to sales.
But today with windows 11? Just roll it out in one of the twenty three testing branches you have and see what happens, and if shit does break. Just work around it. It’ll be fine. Even if something does happen, you can most of the time, fix it and roll out a new update.
And i also think it’s moved to be more team centric, rather than department centric. A lot of the theory is probably more senior team led type responsibility. While everyone writing the code can chip in and add some as well. Developers knowing how to write secure code helps, so they should theoretically also be capable of QA themselves to a degree.
Also there’s a lot more money in shipping shit out the door, than there is in shipping a functional product, unfortunately.
Thank you for your TED talk defining enshitification.
Middle management bloat.
Edit: Bonus points for
Which is straight up just saying “why don’t the devs just do it themselves? I’m busy with meetings to whine back and forth with other middle management.”
pretty much yeah lol