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Showing posts with the label Quality

A problem with Agile, automated testing and frequent releases

Intro I turn on my TV-set. I start my favourite TV application to watch a TV-show. It says there's a new version and insists on updating. Would I have access to new TV-shows or movies after this update? Not at all! Would this application work faster after that? Hardly. Would it be more stable? Hopefully, but no guarantees. What would this update give me? New UI (I was OK with the old one). Ability to choose which trailer I would like to watch (like I need more than one). It eats my internet traffic and time and gives me nothing of value in turn. I need to sort out my finances. I take my cell phone. I start an accounting application that works with my bank. It wouldn't start. Connectivity issue - it says. In reality - what I need is to go to Google Play and update the application. After the update, it looks slightly different, has some new feature I don't need and would hardly use and obfuscates previously learnt path to the features I need. The problem Both

Perceived quality level of a software may have dropped, but testing is not the answer.

"Modern software is of a lower quality that it was in a past". Maybe. Perceived quality of software may have decreased, but I don't think that "more testing" is a proper solution. More testing does not mean more quality More testing may find more issues, but not necessarily. Simply spending more time on the activity does not mean results would be better. And somebody needs to fix bugs, test bug fixes. So we can't tell that more testing means more quality but certainly means bigger costs. Software quality != No bugs Bugs matter, but that's hardly the only factor to measure quality level. There are a whole bunch of other things that matter: UX, number of features, documentation, price, delivery model, cute logos... Spending more time on testing may mean spending less time on these things. Adequate quality level So it is obvious that one can't spend 100 years testing every possible case. I think that each product has some Adequate le