Do you believe it's a good idea for Software Engineers to have to work as Quality Assurance Engineers for some period of time?

Posted by Macy Abbey on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Macy Abbey
Published on 2010-11-27T01:03:36Z Indexed on 2011/11/23 2:07 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 324

Filed under:

code-quality

|

quality

|

job-title

I believe it is. Why?

I've encountered many Software Engineers who believe they are somehow superior to QA engineers. I think it may help quench this belief if they do the job of a QA engineer for some time, and realize that it is a unique and valuable skill-set of its own.
The better a Software Engineer is at testing their own programs, the less cost in time their code incurs when making its way through the rest of the software development life-cycle.
The more time a Software Engineer spends thinking about how a program can break, the more often they are to consider these cases as they are developing them, thus reducing bugs in the end product.
A Software Engineer's definition of "complete" is always interesting...if they have spent time as a QA engineer maybe this definition will more closely match the designer of the software's.

What do you all think?

© Programmers or respective owner

Related posts about code-quality

Tips on a tool to measure code quality?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm looking for a tool that can provide code quality metrics. For instance it could report very long functions (spaghetti code) very complex classes (which could contain do-it-all code) ... While we're on the (subjective:-) subject of code quality, what other code metrics would you suggest? I'm… >>> More
Everyday Challenges to Improving Brownfield Code Quality

as seen on Code Project - Search for 'Code Project'
How best does one integrate code quality tools into an active project? >>> More
New Extension - Check ADF Code Quality

as seen on Oracle Technology Network - Search for 'Oracle Technology Network'
New free extension available from check for updates >>> More
Why is code quality not popular?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I like my code being in order, i.e. properly formatted, readable, designed, tested, checked for bugs, etc. In fact I am fanatic about it. (Maybe even more than fanatic...) But in my experience actions helping code quality are hardly implemented. (By code quality I mean the quality of the code you… >>> More
Counting Lines of code - quality metircs

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm taking the lines of code for my Java project , the project contains lot of XML files too. Now my question is when calculating lines of code. Do i need to consider XML lines of code as well? Please help >>> More

Related posts about quality

Quality Assurance & Quality Control = verification & validation?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
According to a book (page below), reviewing e.g. design (verification activity) is quality assurance. I would not agree, I would say its quality control because we are checking the conformance to specification, plans and detecting deviations (defects) as we do in quality control. But what would be… >>> More
Software Architecture: Quality Attributes

as seen on DotNetBlocks - Search for 'DotNetBlocks'
Quality is what all software engineers should strive for when building a new system or adding new functionality. Dictonary.com ambiguously defines quality as a grade of excellence. Unfortunately, quality must be defined within the context of a situation in that each engineer must extract quality attributes… >>> More
Improve Application Quality with Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) Restart and Recovery

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
Windows Vista and 7 provide the ability to restart crashed or hung applications and recover your work. By building on the strength of the Document-View Architecture, Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) 10 allows new and existing applications to easily take advantage of these Windows features. >>> More
Six Key Trends in Quality Assurance Testing

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
One Infosys expert explains why the QA landscape is undergoing a major transformation. >>> More
New Extension - Check ADF Code Quality

as seen on Oracle Technology Network - Search for 'Oracle Technology Network'
New free extension available from check for updates >>> More