korrents

software quality

Whether a program is any good and how anyone would know: tests, review, debt, and what a suite cannot cover.

What people on korrents have said about software quality, newest first — 19 positions from 12 people.

FilterEveryone, all time
Who Everyone MFMartin Fowler 3 SWSimon Willison 3 DHDex Horthy 2 HWHillel Wayne 2 KBKent Beck 2 BCBoris Cherny 1 CMCasey Muratori 1 CMCharity Majors 1 DLDan Luu 1 DHDavid Heinemeier Hansson 1 DPDylan Patel 1 PSPeter Steinberger 1
When All time Past 1 yearPast 3 yearsPast 5 years
  1. CM

    Casey Muratori quoted

    Our readingDevelopment should never be driven by tests: how much to test is an engineering decision to be costed project by project, not a methodology to adopt by default.

    Their wordsI would say the part that I don't like about test-driven development is the testdriven part. I don't think development should ever be driven by tests.

    ↗Why performant code matters (but gets widely ignored), with Casey Muratoriyoutube.com 21st of 26 in this recording

    Interesting
  2. 2 weeks earlier
  3. CM

    Charity Majors quoted

    Our readingIf engineers do not hold themselves to a high standard and build efficiently, somebody else will come along and impose it on them.

    Their wordsIf we don't do it ourselves, meaning hold ourselves to a high standard, build with efficiency, constantly be like trying to get better, if we don't do it ourselves, someone will come and do it to us.

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 24th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting
  4. 2 days earlier
  5. PS

    Peter Steinberger quoted

    Our readingAdding a config option so nobody breaks compounds into permutations no test suite can cover, because it is infinitely harder to evolve software that has users.

    Their wordsIf you count all the permutations, you can write all the tests you want. It is impossible to cover all of these and not break things from time to time. It is infinitely harder to evolve software that has users.

    ↗Peter Steinberger: "Fun Is Velocity"youtube.com 6th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting
  6. 2 weeks earlier
  7. BC

    Boris Cherny quoted

    Our readingBuilding on a model is unlike any previous software engineering, because the thing you are building on cannot be designed up front.

    Their wordsI I think this is sort of the crazy thing about building on models. It's just so different than all the engineering that I've ever done. Like in the past when you built on systems, you built these like big beautiful systems and you really think about the system design up front. You have like a big suite of unit tests. You think about everything and you know, like a re-architecture is a big project.

    ↗Boris Cherny: We Cut 80% of Claude Code's Promptyoutube.com 7th of 20 in this recording

    design

    Interesting
  8. 12 days earlier
  9. DH

    Dex Horthy quoted

    Our readingModels will not learn to write maintainable code from today’s benchmarks, because the cost of bad architecture cannot be measured by running the unit tests — it arrives three to six months later.

    Their wordsthe problem with training models on maintainability is like the cost function of bad architecture and bad program design can't be evaluated by running the unit test because it hits you 3 to 6 months later

    ↗Context engineering with Dex Horthyyoutube.com 11th of 26 in this recording

    benchmarksdesignwriting

    Interesting
  11. DH

    Dex Horthy quoted

    Our readingAgentic code review raises the floor but cannot be trusted, because the model reading the code is the same model that wrote it, and it will tell you the code is great.

    Their wordsyes it will catch things and it will raise your floor but I don't believe like the model writing the code is the same model reading the code and if you ask a model hey is this code good it's going to be like oh yeah it's great comprehensive it's got unit tests

    ↗Context engineering with Dex Horthyyoutube.com 14th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting
  12. 2 weeks earlier
  13. KB

    Kent Beck quoted

    Our readingUnit testing frameworks arrived so late because testing was a status divide, and testers had every incentive to keep a separate tool and language of their own.

    Their wordsSo beforehand because of this social divide between programmers and testers. There was a lot of incentive for the testers to have their own language. This is my tool. I know how to run it. I'm going to run it.

    ↗How Kent Beck shapes the software engineering industryyoutube.com 8th of 28 in this recording

    Interesting
  15. KB

    Kent Beck quoted

    Our readingFacebook could ship safely without much unit testing because it had many independent layers of feedback, each one catching what the earlier layers missed.

    Their wordsThen you had code review which gave you another level of feedback. You could roll out internally more frequently. And everybody was using Facebook for all kinds of stuff, personal and internal business stuff. So whatever feature you developed, people would start using it immediately. So you get another round of feedback. Then we had this phased roll out process where you'd start rolling your stuff out. If there was a problem, the blast radius would be limited to a a few million people.

    ↗How Kent Beck shapes the software engineering industryyoutube.com 18th of 28 in this recording

    Interesting
  16. 3 months earlier
  17. SW

    Simon Willison quoted

    Our readingA passing test suite is not evidence that the software works, so an agent must also be made to start the thing and exercise it the way a person would.

    Their wordsjust cuz the test suite passes doesn't mean that the web server will boot. You know, there's there's always a chance that when you actually try in the real world, something's not going to work.

    ↗Simon Willison: Engineering practices that make coding agents work - The Pragmatic Summityoutube.com 5th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting
  19. SW

    Simon Willison quoted

    Our readingA language-agnostic conformance suite is the most powerful thing you can hand a coding agent, because the whole instruction becomes: write code until these tests pass.

    Their wordsAnd what you can do if you've got one of these conformance suites is you can give it to a a good agent and say, "Write code until this test suite passes." And it kind of will.

    ↗Simon Willison: Engineering practices that make coding agents work - The Pragmatic Summityoutube.com 6th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting
  21. SW

    Simon Willison quoted

    Our readingWhether agent-written code needs to be good depends entirely on how long it will live: a throwaway single-page tool can be spaghetti, anything maintained cannot.

    Their wordsAnything that you're maintaining over the longer term, the code quality does start really really mattering.

    ↗Simon Willison: Engineering practices that make coding agents work - The Pragmatic Summityoutube.com 7th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting
  22. 8 months earlier
  23. DH

    David Heinemeier Hansson quoted

    Our readingApple has more reason to stumble now than ever: terribly behind on AI, faltering software quality, rivals catching up on silicon, and a leadership too old to relearn.

    Their wordsApple could absolutely stumble and I think they have more reason to stumble now than ever. They're behind on AI, terribly behind. Their software quality is faltering in a bunch of ways.

    ↗DHH: Future of Programming, AI, Ruby on Rails, Productivity & Parenting | Lex Fridman Podcast #474youtube.com 33rd of 36 in this recording

    Apple

    Interesting
  24. 5 months earlier
  25. DP

    Dylan Patel quoted

    Our readingSoftware engineering agents will work before any other kind of agent, because code is the one domain where the machine can check its own answer.

    Their wordsBut really the software engineering agents I think can be done faster sooner than any other agent because it is a verifiable domain. You can always unit test or compile, and there's many different regions of it can inspect the whole code base at once, which no engineer really can.

    ↗DeepSeek, China, OpenAI, NVIDIA, xAI, TSMC, Stargate, and AI Megaclusters | Lex Fridman Podcast #459youtube.com 38th of 44 in this recording

    Interesting
  26. 7 years earlier
  27. HW

    Hillel Wayne quoted

    Our readingRobert C. Martin's advice makes code worse, because it dismisses every correctness technique that is not unit testing.

    Their wordsUncle Bob gives terrible advice. Following it will make your code worse.

    ↗Uncle Bob and Silver Bulletshillelwayne.com 1st of 3 in this piece

    Interesting
  29. HW

    Hillel Wayne quoted

    Our readingUnit tests alone give little confidence in a program, because the mistakes people actually make are not the conveniently unit-testable ones.

    Their wordsBut unit tests don't give you much confidence in your code.

    ↗Uncle Bob and Silver Bulletshillelwayne.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

    Interesting
  30. 3 years earlier
  31. DL

    Dan Luu quoted

    Our readingThe most-cited study showing that language design affects software quality rests on misclassified repositories.

    Their wordsSo the intermediate result appears to not be that TypeScript is reliable, but that projects mis-identified as TypeScript are reliable.

    ↗Literature review on the benefits of static typesdanluu.com 2nd of 5 in this piece

    TypeScriptdesign

    Interesting
  32. 3 years earlier
  33. MF

    Martin Fowler quoted

    Our readingTest coverage is a tool for finding untested code and says nothing about how good the tests are.

    Their wordsTest coverage is of little use as a numeric statement of how good your tests are.

    ↗TestCoveragemartinfowler.com 1st of 3 in this piece

    Interesting
  35. MF

    Martin Fowler quoted

    Our readingMaking test coverage a target destroys it, because high coverage numbers are easy to reach with worthless tests.

    Their wordsIf you make a certain level of coverage a target, people will try to attain it. The trouble is that high coverage numbers are too easy to reach with low quality testing.

    ↗TestCoveragemartinfowler.com 2nd of 3 in this piece

    Interesting
  37. MF

    Martin Fowler quoted

    Our readingTotal test coverage is a warning sign rather than an achievement: it smells of tests written for the number.

    Their wordsI would be suspicious of anything like 100% - it would smell of someone writing tests to make the coverage numbers happy, but not thinking about what they are doing.

    ↗TestCoveragemartinfowler.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

    Interesting