http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=982428


in reply to Re^2: Universal test flag
in thread Universal test flag

chromatic and zwon:

Obviously your world seems more perfect than ours, but the hard truth in the commercial world is that there is always a tradeoff between quality and the amount of money and time available. Most of the projects today are constrained in both, and you must quickly adapt constantly changing business conditions, so refactoring always falls in second place, after you get the (ever changing) functionality pinned down.

Testing on the other hand is paramount to make sure each piece does what it should and all the pieces fit together when several people are working on the same project. Of course, code must be good enough to be tested but it surely doesn't have to be perfect.

Sure, software is perfectible if you have enough time and resources, but the cold hard truth is that in most situations customers are not willing to pay the extra money for perfect code and their budget only allows for "good enough". IMHO, the truly successful business projects are able to deliver in time and money with good enough code to get business flowing and creating the cash flow necessary to eventually perfect the code.