alt Hacker News> Our first and default tool should be some form of lightweight automated testing
Manual verification isn't about skipping tests, it's about validating what to test in the first place.
You need to see the code work before you know what "working" even means. Does the screen render correctly? Does the API return sensible data? Does the flow make sense to users? Automated tests can only check what you tell them to check. If you haven't verified the behavior yourself first, you're just encoding your assumptions into test cases.
I'd take "no tests, but I verified it works end-to-end" over "full test coverage, but never checked if it solves the actual problem" every time. The first developer is focused on outcomes. The second is checking boxes.
Tests are crucial: they preserve known-good behavior but you have to establish what "good" looks like first, and that requires human judgment. Automate the verification, not the discovery. So our first and default tool remains manual verification
I suppose we could be talking circles around eachother, but I'd say many of what you've suggested as manual tests could be codified into an automated test just as easily.
Manual: `curl localhost:8080 | jq .` or whatever, brings value once.
Automated: `assert.ValidJSON(req.Body)` is basically identical, but can be repeated over and over again