If you're upset that there's lousy test coverage, and you respond by complaining, that's not useful. If you respond by making the test suite run faster; creating better mocks; writing docs; making the test results more visible; teaching others how to write (better) tests... that's a different story.
The trouble comes when you think that pointing to a problem is, in and of itself, valuable. We're all surrounded by problems; pointing out one that we likely know about probably isn't useful.
If you respond by making the test suite run faster; creating better mocks;
writing docs; making the test results more visible; teaching others how to
write (better) tests... that's a different story.
The trouble with that is that you only have a limited amount of time. If you're spending time writing tests (even if those tests save time in the long run), it's going to eat up time in the short run, which cements your reputation as a "troublemaker". Namely, your boss is going to wonder why you're taking extra time to write tests and create mocks when your peers are cranking ahead with features.
Yes, in theory, you get to say, "I told you so," when your peers' features are found to be bug-ridden pieces of crap that have to be reworked two or three times before they can be deployed. In practice, a boss whom you can say, "I told you so," to is a boss who'd have listened to you in the first place, making the whole exercise moot.
If you're upset that there's lousy test coverage, and you respond by complaining, that's not useful. If you respond by making the test suite run faster; creating better mocks; writing docs; making the test results more visible; teaching others how to write (better) tests... that's a different story.
The trouble comes when you think that pointing to a problem is, in and of itself, valuable. We're all surrounded by problems; pointing out one that we likely know about probably isn't useful.