Shift-Left Is About to Become the Bane of Developers’ Existence. Why?

Will Shift-left become the bane of developers' existence? If so, why? Know more about this

Today, software testing or IT security is typically being discussed when the Shift-Left idea is brought up. When DevOps teams discover software flaws and security issues early on, they typically become tenfold simpler to address. However, any process that takes place along the delivery chain can benefit from the shift-left concept. The left might also be used for data management, software monitoring, and perhaps software marketing.

What is Shift-left? 

The idea of carrying out a specific procedure earlier in the software supply chain is referred to as "shift left." To put it another way, if you think of the delivery chain as a pipeline with development on the far left and production release on the far right, the earlier a procedure can be completed, the further to the left it gets shifted.

The principle behind shifting left is that you may more readily identify and address issues by carrying out a process earlier in the delivery chain. If you wait longer, there is a greater chance that correcting one issue with your program would need to change other aspects of it because they are dependent on the original issue's root cause.

Why Shift-Left is About to Become the Bane of Developers' Existence?

The shift-left methodology, which pushes DevOps teams to start operations like testing and security as early in the software development lifecycle (SDLC) as possible, may initially appear to developers to be beneficial. By lessening the amount of work developers must complete later in the SDLC, shift-left should theoretically save them time and effort.

However, from a different perspective, shift-left poses a risk to developers. Even when teams use shift-left methodologies with the greatest of intentions, their actions can end up making it more difficult for engineers to do their jobs.

This is not to imply that no one should use the shift-left strategy or that it is a bad concept. However, it is necessary to note that shift-left development strategies may have drawbacks, particularly for developers, and it is crucial to take these issues into account before shifting everything in your SDLC to the left and announcing your team as a champion of contemporary best practices.

The reality of Shift-left:

It is undoubtedly true that moving operations to the left generally saves money and lowers the chance of introducing major software issues into production environments.

However, there is a significant potential drawback to shift-left strategies: Because they force developers to take part in workflows that traditionally belonged to other types of engineers, they add to the workload placed on developers. For instance, quality assurance (QA) engineers have traditionally been responsible for performance testing. The QA team receives code from the developers and tests it. However, if a company wants to move performance testing to the left by performing tests on new code as soon as it is produced, it must either mandate that developers perform those tests or find another solution.

Conclusion: Finally, shift-left should facilitate the development of better software while also saving developers and everyone else time and effort. However, that only occurs when teams work to prevent shift-left from reducing developer productivity.

None of the aforementioned information implies that turning processes to the left is a poor idea. Shift-left does provide tangible advantages. However, it also carries some risk for developers, which is something that is ignored in far too many shift-left discussions. The additional workload that shifting left places on development teams must be considered by organizations that want to shift left effectively. These organizations must also take measures to prevent this from happening.