Introducting Netflix SafeTest, Nw Selenium, and More TGNS111

[00:00:00] Joe Colantonio What are some of the new features of the latest Selenium release? How do you handle feature outages gracefully within mobile apps? And have you seen the new Netflix testing framework? Find out in this episode of The Test Guild News Show for the week of February 25th. So grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea, and let's do this. Before we get into it. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to our Test Guild's LinkedIn News Show newsletter or our YouTube channel in the link down below.

[00:00:27] Joe Colantonio The first up is how to handle feature outages gracefully within mobile apps. This is from Satyajit, who is a mobile testing expert and a mobile expert in general. And he recently shared insights on how to handle feature outages gracefully within mobile apps. And he starts off by acknowledging that obviously, outages are going to happen as part of an engineer's life. But he emphasized the importance of front-end engineers having a plan to manage these situations effectively. And how can you test to make sure that they're being handled effectively? He distinguishes between complete outages and feature outages when only part of the app services are affected, allowing other features to remain operational. He also criticizes the common approach of doing nothing during outages, highlighting the negative user experience and additional strain this places on the compromised service. Instead, he advocates for a feature availability checker, a single endpoint that can inform the app about the status of all its services. Really cool. And this method not only improves user experiences, but also helps preventing access to malfunctioning features, but also serves as a lightweight feature flagging system. So he suggests further enhancements like checking the features availability during user logging and using the service for external status displays. Aim to minimize the impact of outages on the user experience. A really cool feature I think everyone should have in place, especially if you're a tester. These are the types of things you need to look at, so definitely check this out and that comment down below.

[00:01:58] Joe Colantonio Have you heard that Selenium launched a new release? If not, let's check it out. So the Selenium project announced the release of Selenium 4.8, marking a big update across multiple programming languages including the JavaScript, the Ruby, the Python, the .Net, and the Java bindings, as well as enhancements to the Selenium grid and some key updates that goes over its including or extending Chrome dev tools support for versions 120 and 122. A shift in the chrome headless naming convention to better reflect its functionality, and numerous language-specific improvements, such as adding support for self-signed certifications in Java and Grid and expanding BiDi Protocol capabilities. This release also introduced adjustments to reducing the Selenium manager's impact on users. So if you are using Selenium time to upgrade and you can check that out in the comment down below.

[00:02:50] Joe Colantonio I'm always looking for new tools, and one of them that came across my desk was from Netflix. And this is how Netflix has recently unveiled SafeTest, which is a new approach to front-end testing, and it's a really cool way you can use to do testing of web interfaces. It was developed by Moshe and the way it works is SafeTest integrates a test runner, a browser automation library, a UI framework, and dependency injection to overcome the limitations of traditional UI testing. This method is already in use by Netflix, and it aims to streamline the testing process by combining the advantages of unit testing and end-to-end testing. SafeTest facilitates the testing in real browsers while allowing for the mocking of non-browser dependencies, offering a really more efficient and effective testing solution. And the person that developed it, Moshe, I have him lined up on my calendar for an interview to go in detail, so stay tuned for even more Netflix SafeTest awesomeness.

[00:03:48] Joe Colantonio Another thing that caught my attention was a post by Jason Arbon pointing to another LinkedIn post and a really cool development that you should check out as well. So Jason Arbon pointed out to me a groundbreaking demonstration of AI capabilities from Paige Bailey and Paige shared a video demo on LinkedIn showcasing the power of Gemini Pro with ultra-long contacts by simply recording a screen capture of herself searching for an apartment on Zillow, Gemini Pro was able to generate Selenium code that meticulously replicated her task step by step. In impressively, the AI detected her preference for apartments under 3000 with explicit instructions, and the generated code was designed to automate the entire process. So opening a Chrome browser, navigating to Zillow, sending search parameters for the location, and for rentals up to 3000, specifying a minimum of two bedrooms and filtering for apartment, condos, co-ops, etc. it then applied these filters, waits for the results, printed them out, and then close the browser. And this is a really cool illustration of the potential for AI to revolutionize software development in the system, understanding, and making complex tasks more accessible and efficient. And this was actually one of the trends I went over for my 2024 predictions, How multimodal AI is really going to help accelerate automation because it's going to now be able to interact with audio, video, and all these things. So thank you, Paige, for this really awesome demonstration of how this actually can be done.

[00:05:24] Joe Colantonio Are you a Cypress expert and you want to share your knowledge with your fellow testers? I have a great event for you. So CypressConf 2024 is officially open its call for papers, and it's inviting industry experts like you, thought leaders, and innovators in test automation to share their knowledge at their annual conference. And this event, which is dedicated to the Cypress testing framework, really aims to foster a platform for professionals to exchange their insights and advancements in the field. And if this is something you're interested in, if you're an expert and you want to share your knowledge, this is your chance to submit your session ideas by April 17th and speakers will be confirmed by June 1st. Definitely check this out. I think the conference is happening October 22nd and 23rd, and I'll have a link for this in the comment down below.

[00:06:14] Joe Colantonio If you have anything to do with RPA, you're probably familiar with RoboCorp. They just made a major announcement as well. So in this announcement, they talk about how they launched innovative inspectors from windows and browser automations, which enhance the efficiency and accuracy of software development. And this new feature is integrated into the RoboCorp code extension for VScode, which streamlines the process of editing, validating, and deleting locators without additional installation steps. For Windows Automations, this update introduces parent-child, rule creation, interactive field selection, real-time validation in automatic screenshot capture, and some of the browser automation benefits they have a seamless recording, flexible strategy adjustments, quicker locator validations, direct Python code generation and screenshot capture for easy recall of elements.

[00:07:03] Joe Colantonio One of my performance gurus is back in the news and that is James Pulley, a DevPerfOps evangelist sheds light on the real losers of Super Bowl 2024. It's not what you think. So he created a blog post that focuses not on the teams but on the advertisers and the streaming services that face significant challenges during the event. And in this, James highlights that 6 out of 57 national commercial campaigns experience failures. He figure consistent with the previous year. The most notable issues arose with streaming services like Paramount Plus, Hulu, TSN sports, Verizon, and tidal, which struggled to deliver a seamless viewer experience to the 123.4 million viewers, a quarter of whom were streaming users, and James shared personal experience and industry insights to illustrate the financial and reputational consequences of poor software performance that everyone seems to ignore, except when things like this happen, and emphasizes the importance of preparing and technically optimizing for high traffic events like the Super Bowl. Definitely, a real case study on how you should be prepared for these types of events, and you can find it in the comments down below.

[00:08:17] Joe Colantonio And speaking of performance, one more news item in this area. And this is Todd, who pointed to an article that talks a little bit more about a comprehensive guide on monitoring cross-origin resource performance in web applications. The article itself is by Jordan Griffin, and he recognizes the challenges that browsers restrict detailed performance data for resources loaded from different origins. Jordan outlines a solution involving the addition of timing, allow origin header to cross-origin responses, and this approach enables websites or web pages to access crucial timing information, enhancing the ability to monitor improve web performance comprehensively. And this guide details how to configure Web Service services or CDNs to include this header, allowing specific or all origins. This method not only addresses security concerns but also ensures that web performance monitoring services like request metrics can offer full visibility into page performance, ultimately leading to a better understanding and optimization of web resources.

[00:09:20] Joe Colantonio And links to everything of value we covered in this news episode. Head on over to the links in the comment down below. So that's it for this episode of The Test Guild News Show. I'm Joe, and my mission is to help you succeed at creating end-to-end full-stack pipeline automation awesomeness. As always, test everything and keep the good. Cheers.