Pay Back Bad Developers

Here we are, in the thick of the holiday season when we give gifts to the important people in our lives. When doing your Christmas shopping, you should be careful not to overlook the founders of the feast - the Bad Developers.

I say this not because developers write the code that gets sold to your users, thus paying the bills. I say this because without Bad Developers, and the wonderful bugs they tuck away in the product like lumps of coal in a stocking, there would be no need for testers.

That is why I recommend that testers buy a gift for the worst Developers on the team. I say the worst, because it is these venerable engineers that make necessary most of the testing we do. You don't need to reward the good developers - if they are not going to send some wonderful bugs your way, you don't need to get them a thing. So Karen, Jeff, Dominick, and Alex - no gifts for you because you make me work too hard to find those precious few bugs.

But what is the best gift to show how much you appreciate the Bad Developers and their lack of best practices, unit testing, common sense, and skill than a fruit-cake. Nothing says "Thanks for the lousy code! Keep up the bad work!" like a cake made of fruit. This classic no-prize is just what every Bad Developer needs and wants.