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Firefox 55 and Selenium IDE

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Re: Firefox 55 and Selenium IDE

#21

Post by sweep3r »

mixedCase wrote: post #17
sweep3r wrote: post #11

This is what is going to happen to most extensions. Mozilla is bonkers, doing this. They're going to regret it.

Are they? The old system is holding improvements back. If they move to a superset of Chrome's they can still get Chrome add-ons and then some. If people value the old extension system that much, then it will live on in one of the FF forks. Regardless Firefox will finally get faster, more responsive, more secure, AND still have a better extension API than Blink/WebKit.

>If people value the old extension system that much, then it will live on in one of the FF forks.

Using a fork is also bonkers. I don't trust the security of my web browsing on a fork. Most people won't, either. So Firefox will just get this nice metric saying "most people have not moved to a fork" and will be able to pat themselves in the back. But it's bogus.

Re: Firefox 55 and Selenium IDE

#22

Post by unexistance »

Osmose wrote: post #4

I'd be curious to see what the usage stats on the IDE are; my company (Mozilla, ironically) uses Selenium a ton, but as far as I know we write all of our tests by hand instead of with the IDE since it allows you to use patterns like Page objects to make your tests more maintainable in the long run. Although the last time I used the IDE was years ago, so it may be more flexible than it used to be. Does anyone extensiv…

previous company used it quite extensively, especially if there's a new feature the enterprise software that needs testing by the QA team

we did write the test by hand tho, very DSL-like & really targeted at non-programmer

Re: Firefox 55 and Selenium IDE

#23

Post by neves »

Osmose wrote: post #4

I'd be curious to see what the usage stats on the IDE are; my company (Mozilla, ironically) uses Selenium a ton, but as far as I know we write all of our tests by hand instead of with the IDE since it allows you to use patterns like Page objects to make your tests more maintainable in the long run. Although the last time I used the IDE was years ago, so it may be more flexible than it used to be. Does anyone extensiv…

This is the great feature of the Ide. Kick start your tests, then you "upgrade" to hand coding. Great for learning about a new system, or to get help from less technical people when the house is on fire.

Re: Firefox 55 and Selenium IDE

#24

Post by Grue3 »

mixedCase wrote: post #17
sweep3r wrote: post #11

This is what is going to happen to most extensions. Mozilla is bonkers, doing this. They're going to regret it.

Are they? The old system is holding improvements back. If they move to a superset of Chrome's they can still get Chrome add-ons and then some. If people value the old extension system that much, then it will live on in one of the FF forks. Regardless Firefox will finally get faster, more responsive, more secure, AND still have a better extension API than Blink/WebKit.

The only reason to use Firefox is because many of its extensions are not possible in any other browser. Watch the market share drop after the extensions are dumbed down to Chrome level.

Re: Firefox 55 and Selenium IDE

#26

Post by neves »

danidiaz wrote: post #19

Test recorders are an antipattern. They lure you with their "no programming required!" siren call, but the generated scripts invaribly end up as a fragile, poorly abstracted mess. GUI tests suites, especially those created with recorders, are prone to become unmaintainable beasts full of flaky tests. This old interview with Bret Pettichord makes good points about the use of recorders: https://youtu.be/s_CUPs6xAWw?t=5…

All you said is true, but this doesn't stop Selenium IDE of being a valuable tool. You just need to know when to use it. Without it a lot systems in my company would have zero tests. Not even bad and fragile ones.

Re: Firefox 55 and Selenium IDE

#27

Post by matt_wulfeck »

jackblack8989 wrote: post #20

I have a feeling that the kind of firms that were benefiting from Selenium IDE (hiring cheap labor to write tests as an afterthought) were not the kind of firms that would spend money to contribute. This isn't sustainable.

Or the kind of engineers capable of contributing to the software.

Re: Firefox 55 and Selenium IDE

#28

Post by bshacklett »

neves wrote: post #26
danidiaz wrote: post #19

Test recorders are an antipattern. They lure you with their "no programming required!" siren call, but the generated scripts invaribly end up as a fragile, poorly abstracted mess. GUI tests suites, especially those created with recorders, are prone to become unmaintainable beasts full of flaky tests. This old interview with Bret Pettichord makes good points about the use of recorders: https://youtu.be/s_CUPs6xAWw?t=5…

All you said is true, but this doesn't stop Selenium IDE of being a valuable tool. You just need to know when to use it. Without it a lot systems in my company would have zero tests. Not even bad and fragile ones.

One could argue that bad or fragile tests can be more harmful than having no tests at all.

Re: Firefox 55 and Selenium IDE

#29

Post by ohthehugemanate »

Grue3 wrote: post #24
mixedCase wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they? The old system is holding improvements back. If they move to a superset of Chrome's they can still get Chrome add-ons and then some. If people value the old extension system that much, then it will live on in one of the FF forks. Regardless Firefox will finally get faster, more responsive, more secure, AND still have a better extension API than Blink/WebKit.

The only reason to use Firefox is because many of its extensions are not possible in any other browser . Watch the market share drop after the extensions are dumbed down to Chrome level.

Only reason?

I use Firefox because it's way faster, more stable, and from an organization that I trust. I run Nightly, which means that I made the shift to Webextensions last week. My only extension that didn't have a WE version or alternative was LastPass. No surprise, since they seem to take such poor care of their extensions anyway. That's a Deal Breaker for me, so I switched to pass.

Re: Firefox 55 and Selenium IDE

#30

Post by danidiaz »

bshacklett wrote: post #28
neves wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All you said is true, but this doesn't stop Selenium IDE of being a valuable tool. You just need to know when to use it. Without it a lot systems in my company would have zero tests. Not even bad and fragile ones.

One could argue that bad or fragile tests can be more harmful than having no tests at all.

Exactly, there is a degreee of flakiness beyond which you don't gain much assurance from your tests and you spend more time fighting fires in the testsuite than actually testing your app.
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