RANT: writing 1000 test cases is not that bad

I've heard a number of times over the past few months here at work things like: "...but if we do it like that, that means I'll be writing test cases forever!"  Testers: do you think developers say that when they're assigned to engineer some feature?  If they do, they probably won't be keeping their job long.  When assigned to engineer a feature, a developer goes through some process to figure out what it is they need to do/not do, then write the code that makes the thing do that, one line of code at a time, until the thing does what they think it should do.  What's so craaaazy about testing those lines of code in their different permutations??  Sure, there's merit in testing efficiently, but that's beside the point.  The point is, you do what it takes to get the job done--if that means writing 1000 new test cases in the next month, then that's what it means.