this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
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Is this like a who's got a bigger portfolio situation? I'm not sure how to respond
I guess I've been developing for decades including consulting for Page 6, a stint in RD at Sony Music. One of my open source contributions was used as part of the backend for one of Obama's State of the Unions. I spend my time these days writing and maintaining multiple software stacks integrating across multiple platforms.
Since you brought up the notion that we might be doing different styles of development, I was giving you context as to the kinds of development that I do. Sounds like we might not be doing such different scales of development after all, but I couldn't have known that until you gave that information just now.
This isn't supposed to be some kind of duel or argument, I don't see the point of that. I'm just explaining my usage of coding agents and specifically unit tests in that context. Since that's what you were questioning.
I see it seemed more like a weird flex.
Anyways, I couldnt possibly deploy with any confidence a large project or honestly a small project I expected someone to rely on without layers of test. Unintended consequences of even a small change are just a reality. And with the expectation to move quick with large legacy systems, if you don't have tests that's a dangerous high wire act.
In my world, that depends just about entirely upon how "dynamic" the code base is expected to be after release. We send a lot of things into the field, thousands of copies used for important work, which we pretty much know certain aspects of the system are unlikely to be changed once released. Others are very likely to be changed. "Back in the day" we'd make reasoned judgement calls about which ones would benefit from the effort of unit / integration testing and which ones that effort would be better invested elsewhere. As time marches on, our procedures and cross-departmental "advisors" who aren't so cozy with the code are relentlessly pushing for more and more automated testing. It is safer, no argument, but it also delays launch - sometimes without added value IMO.