I want no monuments

After four months doing TDD, trying to understand a data driven application I’m keeping on receiving pats on my back for the good job!

Two managers congratulating me at least once a week for my approach, for my enthusiasm, for the continuous integration box, and me explaining them how these things are making things easier, more robust and more secure.

But…
Today another bug came out from the other part of the application, made by the other team. One of my managers asked me how these all could be avoided and me answering tests! unit, functional, human… just test it!. The answer disarmed my enthusiasm:

Yeah, but then it all costs more money

What? Why the hell have you paid my salary until now? Is it because the money I get is not yours? Are you schizophrenic? To which one of you am I talking?

By the way, now I know how it could be that my coworkers are still not doing TDD.

My managers are probably lying (to me or to themselves) as on the one hand they say something while on the other they do the opposite.

Has anyone seen this pattern and knows how the situation can be changed (apart from resigning, since the contract it’s going to terminate in two months) ?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Software Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.