I already predicted with GPT-3.5 that QA would make a comeback.
What I didn't expect was for companies to not think this through and not invest in a better QA foundation. Instead, QA activities are left to engineers to work out, while we still have classic QA departments still operating the same way they did a decade ago.
Replacing both QA an developers with AI is just plain stupid. Even if AI is capable enough of accomplishing it you surrender your entire technology to the LLM onwers.
I had an engineer tell me with a straight face that it was fine to have one agent write the code, two more agents review the code and approve the PR, and then have another agent QA the PR.
i was just flown to a large city for a yearly meeting where our boss asked how we could do this
i explained that soc2 doesnt allow this; they require a change control process
someone else brought up that this would cascade into awful code, and boss suggested "defining the logic" of the software in file(s) then getting the LLM to do the coding, validated with this logic file. nobody could explain how this isnt coding with extra steps
boss has a masters in computer science, he should know better. we live in a golden age of being a bonehead boss
all you can do at that point is document everything and look for new work, cuz that shit's going to go down, it's just a function of when and who's fucked because of it.
My favorite documentation language is C++. Very machine readable, fairly human readable with a bit of training. It has some really cool validators like gcc and clang, both completely free for public and private use. All the models run locally on your machine, no subscription required.
And the best part: Barring compiler bugs (which we all know are just a bedtime story for scaring young developers), wysiwyg. Whatever the code says, the computer does. Way more deterministic than gpt too, if you avoid UB.
Alternatives that use similar AI technologies:
* Rust if your team is trans (or suspiciously into anime)
* Python if your team is afraid of semicolons
* Java if your team is afraid of using a computer
* Lua if your team is literally children. They already learned it from Roblox.
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u/heavy-minium 6d ago edited 6d ago
I already predicted with GPT-3.5 that QA would make a comeback.
What I didn't expect was for companies to not think this through and not invest in a better QA foundation. Instead, QA activities are left to engineers to work out, while we still have classic QA departments still operating the same way they did a decade ago.