A post on the relationship between Programmer and Tester

Dear Programmer,

My job is to help you look good. My job is to support you as you create quality; to ease that burden instead of adding to it.

What follows are twelve commitments a tester should make to their programmers. They include things like:

• I provide a service. You are an important client of that service. I am not satisfied unless you are satisfied.
• I will learn the product quickly, and make use of that knowledge to test more cleverly.
• I will not carelessly waste your time. Or if I do, I will learn from that mistake.

But James is not in usual form unless he invites controversy, and that first bullet struck quite a chord with some of his readers. Testers provide a service!? Since when?

James wrote some follow-up that makes a fascinating and compelling case for more “service” between people within an organization, and that it’s not a bad thing for someone to serve their peers:

Please meditate on the difference between service and subservience. I am a servant and I am proud of that. I am support crew. I spent my time as a production programmer and I’m glad I don’t do that any more. I don’t like that sort of pressure. I like to serve people who will take that pressure on my behalf.

This doesn’t make me a doormat. Nobody wipes their feet on me– I clean their feet. There’s a world of difference. Good mothers know this difference better than anyone.

Source :

http://blog.utest.com/the-relationship-between-testers-and-programmers/2011/11/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UtestBlog+%28uTest+Blog%29