work-blog/articles/drafts/test-environments-and-platos-cave.md
Gregory Gauthier 0fc66fedcb docs(articles): add frontmatter to drafts and update README
Standardize draft articles with YAML frontmatter including title, date, topics, related, and abstract. Expand README drafts section into a table listing all drafts with topics. Add "Testing Telos" to published articles.
2026-04-20 10:58:49 +01:00

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---
title: "Test Environments and Plato's Cave"
date: 2026-04-20
topics: [philosophy, epistemology]
related: []
abstract: >
"Works on my machine" is not a joke but an ontological problem. Dev, staging, UAT, and prod are each caves with their own shadows — and the tester's job is to work out which projections can be trusted as evidence about the form beyond.
---
Test Environments as Platonic Shadows. "Works on my machine" isn't a joke, it's an ontological problem. Dev, staging, UAT, prod — each is a cave with its own set of shadows. Plato's cave[^1] maps with almost embarrassing precision. This piece could sit beside Perturbation Theory as another "borrowed-framework" essay and give you a natural home for your AWS HealthImaging / cross-manufacturer DICOM work, where the "same" data behaves differently in different environments.
[^1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/