My thoughts on automation engineering

WebDriver

1. • WebDriver is in my opinion the future of web browser automation. Not because WebDriver became a buzz word in the browser automation community, but mostly because of it‘s architectural design. WebDriver is designed to make direct calls to the browser using each browser‘s native support and that is great!
   

2. • While Selenium simply inject the whole javascript „sandbox“ in to the browser when the browser is loading, Webdriver follows another approach. It drives the browser directly using the browser‘s built in support for automation.
   

3. • This (r)evolutionary approach opens a new world of possibilities and ways to interact with a browser. The best example for that are the iPhone and the AndroidDriver which have been implemented using the JsonWireProtocol.

Further thoughts

1. • The pageObjects pattern
   

2. • What I consider antipatterns when working with WebDriver
   

3. • Selenium RC limitations
   

4. • Recommendations

WC3 standard for browser automation support

1. • But what is if we get a new browser standard spec, based on the Webdriver API? What is when all future browsers provide native automation support for WebDriver? Wouldn‘t that be just great?
   

2. • Conversations are taking place. Keyword „State of the union“. I‘ve been there :-)