For Software Sustainability, Shift Left
DevOps practitioners regularly talk about “shifting left” - thinking about scalability, security, QA, Ops, etc, earlier in the software engineering process. Doing so allows issues to be addressed earlier, and leads to more stable software, lower costs, and a higher developer velocity. This talk will show that the shift-left mentality is perhaps more fundamental: “shifting-left” encapsulates a fundamental tradeoff between fidelity in defect finding and defect cost, both for defects that are found and those that slip through. Your process is most effective when you’ve shifted-left defect finding and product fitness practices in such a way to ensure that most releases are quick, easy, non-events. When viewed as a currency, this concept ties final product fitness with standard engineering workflow practices, and “shifting left” emerges as more than a buzzword - it’s a fundamental recognition of a real truth in Software Engineering as a discipline.