I have been thinking about the role and prestige of testing for the past several years. Many things I have read and things companies have done indicate that “testing” is something that is considered a bit passe and old-school. Testers are dead weight that get into the way of releases, and they are unproductive barnacles that slow development down. Testers can all be replaced by automatic testing put in place by brilliant developers. The creative developer types are the guys with the status anyway. I might be exaggerating, but there is an issue here. I think we need to be acknowledge that testers are a critical part of the software quality puzzle, and that testing is not just something developers can do with one hand tied behind their back.