I have not seen tests in any code base I worked on in the past 20 years. I have noticed that there is some kind of sanctimonious demeanor to quite a few people that advocate for tests (on comment boards). I find the reactions to discussions on tests fascinating because it seems to elicit very strong opinions, sort of a "do you put your shopping cart back" kind of topic, but for programmers.

People who advocate “writing tests” never admit any of the costs and difficulties of automated output checking.

As you change your codebase you will experience lots of “failures” that are not failures. You still have to burn your time investigating them.

Many checks will require elaborate mocking or other kinds of setup, that give lie to the claim that designing them is simple and straightforward.

over 20 years, many stacks, and same

> I have never worked on a project with any kind of meaningful test coverage

That says more about you and the care you put into quality assurance than anything else, really.