„Testing is Harder then development.” I have heard this a lot this year, especially now that Gerald Weinberg passed, lots of people repeat his famous quote.

He had a point to make when he said that, but a lot of people that are saying it now don’t have any.

For them its either elitism, „I don’t need to learn how to code, Testing is harder than developing so I don’t need to code.” I some places where developer looks downs at testers I seen it used as a mantra for Self-assurance.

But here is the thing:

It doesn’t matter.

We’re living in „the era of crappy quality” (more on that in the next article).
So being able to produce something is what puts money on the table. Testing can only improve its value, but in itself, it won’t EVER create a product.
And remember small startups quite often can’t afford a Tester, that doesn’t mean they are not doing any testing.
Plus there are some new concepts that don’t see a tester’s role, for example, modern testing.

This argument doesn’t bring us any sympathy.
Tell that to the developer. At best he will think you are petty. At worst you will antagonise him.
PO/PM/BA may listen to you, but they won’t care.

That kind of behaviour is what puts us deeper in our silo instead of helping us break out from them.

And now the most critical argument:

IT IS DIFFERENT TYPE OF ACTIVITY!

Apples and Oranges.

Think about it – lots of developers can test they usually don’t want to.
But a lot of testers can’t write any code.

I think we are better than this! We should be building bridges instead of silos.

So what do you think? Do you see any value in saying that Testing is harder?