It reminds me that the so-called "observer effect" prevents a debugging and testing environment from reflecting production perfectly. However, there's certainly a balance which must dictate the degree to which the QA process is relied upon.
Given that OK-Cupid is a dating app meant for "fun", I'm not surprised that the testing environment was somewhat loose and informal. However, as the author alludes, when the consequences of failure ramp up... testing and QA become absolutely indispensable.
IMHO, the trick is being able to mirror as much as possible between the QA and production environments... and then determining when to deploy. This needs a fair bit of experience, subject matter expertise, and of course luck. You can never discount luck.
It reminds me that the so-called "observer effect" prevents a debugging and testing environment from reflecting production perfectly. However, there's certainly a balance which must dictate the degree to which the QA process is relied upon.
Given that OK-Cupid is a dating app meant for "fun", I'm not surprised that the testing environment was somewhat loose and informal. However, as the author alludes, when the consequences of failure ramp up... testing and QA become absolutely indispensable.
IMHO, the trick is being able to mirror as much as possible between the QA and production environments... and then determining when to deploy. This needs a fair bit of experience, subject matter expertise, and of course luck. You can never discount luck.