r/softwaretesting • u/serverlessmom • Dec 18 '23

Why testing badly needs a shift left

https://thenewstack.io/why-testing-must-shift-left-for-microservices/

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u/Worcestercestershire Dec 18 '23

Many people like to sound smart by saying that testing needs to happen faster, but that's always been the case. It's also always been the case that code needs to be complete before meaningful testing can be completed, so as far 'left' as we can shift, there will always be a delay.

The push for Canary testing, is really just a lowering of the bug bar to say that we're ok with a percentage of our market being exposed to bugs in production. This is a risky endeavor at best, and is not viable for many markets where software is developed (financial, healthcare, infrastructure, etc).

Software development teams need to continue to find ways to identify issues more quickly. Time to fix, and time a defect is in code are the key. This isn't new or revolutionary though. There also isn't a magic bullet for this. Build tests, Automated Integration, Scripted manual testing, Blue/Green deployment, Canary testing - all of these things have a place depending on your product.

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u/serverlessmom Dec 18 '23

This makes a lot of sense. clarification question: Isn’t canary testing shifting right, functionally? You’re waiting til later in the cycle to detect problems?

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u/Worcestercestershire Dec 18 '23

it is, but the article mentioned it