I agree that that is what they are trying to do, but they don't appear to be testing with all that different of a strategy; something has been removed, but it doesn't seem like anything has taken it's place.
Staging is useful because you cannot predict how your changes will impact the entire application, or how it will interact with configuration. This is precisely where isolated tests fall short. Differences between production and staging are real, but differences between production and local are much more profound.
Staging is an imperfect strategy, but this approach doesn't appear to be sound. It seems to shrug it's shoulders and settle for something even worse. I'm baffled, frankly.
Staging is useful because you cannot predict how your changes will impact the entire application, or how it will interact with configuration. This is precisely where isolated tests fall short. Differences between production and staging are real, but differences between production and local are much more profound.
Staging is an imperfect strategy, but this approach doesn't appear to be sound. It seems to shrug it's shoulders and settle for something even worse. I'm baffled, frankly.