In the past few weeks, I was in four or five interesting meetings in which I had conversations with a wide range of software products – from embedded systems to code generators. The participants were founders of nascent as well as fairly established startups. As I discussed their products with them, I felt that the need for software quality practices is all the more needed in this age of GenAI.
There are two different opinions on if and how GenAI will grow and scale. There are these strong advocates who build products for the GenAI ecosystems which include software testing and quality products, and there are people who are pessimistic about GenAI because of its sustainability concerns. This has been debated long and well enough in LinkedIn and other social media platforms, so you can take your pick on which side you want to be in.
But the point is, in either case, there is a dire need for software quality practices driven by humans. I see a trend in the developers community who tend to restrict their software quality view on just code quality. Yes, preventing code defects, or avoiding code altogether can reduce many big headaches, but, software quality is not just about code, and includes all areas of the product development life cycle including architecture, design, and testing. So, while your GenAI code generator could potentially generate some impressive code and save you quite a bit of time, it’s on your plate to validate and verify that code and make sure that it adheres to the various pillars of software quality.
I’m very excited and quite thrilled to address software quality practices in this age and era with the key focus on validation and verification. To that extent, nothing has really changed for me, as I continue to do the same old things that used to do all these years. Technologies change, but underlying basics don’t. That’s the case with software quality. In fact, many admit that software quality practices are an ever-growing necessity. Quality audits, metrics, KPIs, methodologies, and best practices are still relevant, although the tools and ways of doing them might have changed a bit.
If you would like to discuss about addressing software quality practices of your organisation’s products, feel free to setup a call with me at https://calendly.com/venkatramakrishnan , and I would be glad to take it forward. Cheers!
