Another article in the series of “What to do to make life better” and perhaps accurate diagnosis? Welcome to the discussion leave the comments …
1. Nomenclature – Tester vs Developer
Who is the tester? It’s simple: he must check whether something is functioning properly. For example, a hammer, can I drive in nails with it? Yes? Great – product may be sold. Tester bashes the hammer in the nails all day, sometimes misses – in total tester is a dangerous profession:) What about the developer? It is difficult, do not understand what’s hidden in this complicated formula, certainly he does something special, something mysterious with a high degree of complexity. What’s more he is the producer, through his work something rise up, something tangible though incomprehensible!
2. Historic misunderstandings – “Press any key”
Tester is a performer, it can check whether the message “Press any key” actually respond to each key. For someone it is a history for others it is a present.
Today, however, we are dealing with the fast progress of testing techniques for the creation of integrated automation systems in many environments. Implement unit testing ruled the brutal force methodology – as the aforementioned keyboard example, if only the code coverage is already high enough we do not have to test manually whether 2 + 2 equals 4.
The role of usability testing, quality of the user interface and performance increased. Testers start producing code, create test scripts, create reports on the tests, they have become the creators.
I wrote these few sentence and I think this increases the value of tester, but unfortunately not all employers are aware of this, maybe You can simply tell them about that?
3. Quality assurance importance – “Are you Tester? Take a glimpse!”
I already do not know how many times I am writing about the fact that quality assurance is still a low priority, even if a company says “Yes, we are very concerned at the quality!” This often does not follow the words of those changes in the budget section of quality assurance department.
I wrote about how well place the cooperation between testers and developers (link) – it is worth reading, because often the poor rating of the testing activities is a low awareness of developer division. Quality department is a good candidate to pass the responsibility for the quality of the resulting code in the developer department, it is difficult to fight for more money when everything is wrong with our reason.
If additional funds finally have become, try to increase quality, provide additional technology, report with more complexity.
Please avoid sentences that I wrote in the title of this point, you want to have a good tested product? Plan tests and the budget!
[...] Why tester is cheaper than developer by Marcin Zręda My cogitation about the understating the role of tester. [...]
You said a software developer can be a tester, but I must say software tester cant be a good software developer. There is no comparison between software tester and developer. Software Tester are nothing before software developer. A developer uses whole of the mind, techniques, effort to write a piece of code to develop a software or application, and what a tester does, just test that and find bugs, if this work is assigned to another developer, he can easily do testing because a developer can be a good tester, but a tester cant be a good developer.
The developers whole mind is in developing a piece of code which matches the requirements directly and not really worried about the side effects. But its the tester who uses the different techniques to find whether the code is developed properly as per the requirement. So if the tester become the developer, he can be more efficient. A developer can be a good tester or a tester can be good developer only if he has the required competencies.
Testers are yet to get their recognition in the industry. For this reason they are still cheaper than developer. Also it depends upon a company’s perception about quality & requirement. If a company focuses on Quality then there is no difference between payscale of testers & developers.
Hi Shakti,
I don’t agree with your comments. Developer can be a tester. never. perception of developer is always different with the one which tester has.
Developer sees only 1 road for the result but tester will try to search for infinite paths to destination and checks if all the paths are working fine. He acts as real user and tests the application which developer cannot do.
Hi Shakti,
If developer could be a tester then there would be no need for a tester at all and also all the bugs would be found in unit testing which is done by a developer. There can be only one right way and thousand ways to go wrong. A developer sees only 1 right way whereas a tester should check for those 1000 wrong way
If the tester is having the knowledge of languages whose applications he is testing,then no one can be as good as him.
Testers always have to do some more work than the developers!
If software developers could be testers, software testing market wouldn’t have been estimated in billions.
Software testing is among the most critical activities for organizations that focus on quality. A dedicated testing team and an integrated test management tool are no longer optional for QA teams around the world.
A software tester understands and replicates the behavior or the end user. For a developer to do the same, it will take a lot of “unlearning”, which is almost impossible. These days, experienced software testers are highly valued and in some cases, even more than developers.
Durgesh
QMetry | Total Test Management
Hi, all of you discussed very well,but i want to know can play two different role as developer and as a tester.Actually my friend working as a php developer and she done testing course before getting job as developer.Now in her company, they are willing to hire fresher in testing.Whether company offer more salary for developer who also know testing concepts ? or she have to continue as developer or can move to testing from developing?
Please anyone can reply, my friend need advice from people like you who have more knowledge
Why there is no reply ?
Hi PREMASHALINI..
as with the experience of 3 years in testing I would like to suggest ur friend that having some exp of development along with testing course she must be work in the field of testing becoz her logical skills are some what cleared as by the development(it doesn’t matter what so be the platform is)and she knows testing skills. That means she has so many approaches towards any problem and no doubt testing has a good salary in very short time…..
Developers don’t like to be testers simply because testing is a boring task. Developers get to do challenging tasks and have to be smart. Not everyone can be developers.