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by mistermann
3729 days ago
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Using one anecdotal experience as proof is not the exact opposite of a strawman. Similarly: "That one hour you “saved” by not writing tests will cost you five hours of tracking down a nasty bug in production, and five hours more when your “hotfix” causes a new bug." These numbers don't line up with any experience I've ever had. In my opinion the value of testing should stand on its own without having to exaggerate. |
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A strawman argument is an argument no one is actually making, but one that's easy to debate against (to "knock down"). So even "one anecdotal experience" implies there is someone making that argument and it's not a strawman. Moreover, as I said above, it's not a single anecdote, but experience with many, many companies, including ones I worked for directly, those that are the clients of my company (http://atomic-squirrel.net/), and the many companies I interviewed while writing my book. Of course, the plural of anecdote is not "data", but I'm pretty sure that you don't need statistically significant data sets to show your argument isn't a strawman.
> These numbers don't line up with any experience I've ever had. In my opinion the value of testing should stand on its own without having to exaggerate.
If anything, it's not an exaggeration, but an underestimate. I can't count how many hours I've lost to debugging that could've easily been saved by a handful of automated tests. But perhaps you're a better programmer than I am, and I envy that your code works perfectly regardless of whether you write tests or not.