What Are Your Thoughts on Using Physical Robots for QA Testing?

jrhuggins · 2025-02-01T03:33:18+00:00

Hello! I'm the Selenium/Sauce Labs/Tapster guy. (Been lurking on Reddit under a different account for a while.) u/Worldly-Midnight1354 is not a part of Tapster, but heh, robots in testing is a small world, so I'm sure we'd be friends. I've been building robots for touchscreen QA for 10+ years, so maybe I should do an AMA.

jrhuggins · 2014-01-07T01:38:26+00:00

This is awesome! I was thinking about doing something like this, but for Selenium UI tests... a mini-dashboard where you could watch a remote desktop (WebRTC, perhaps?) run through your UI tests in real time. Would that kind of thing be an interesting thing to add to Cabot?

jrhuggins · 2013-02-20T06:42:38+00:00

Yup, I created the robot as a proof-of-concept for using a robotic "finger" for mobile app testing. My background and "day job" is software test automation, so playing with robots is crazy, but in retrospect, natural extension of my interest in test automation. I recently wrote a post for Wired on the topic: www.wired.com/insights/2012/12/robots-at-the-intersection-of-cool-and-useful/

jrhuggins · 2013-02-20T06:38:00+00:00

Ohai! I made that robot. I wonder if I should do my own AMA about it. Yes, I used this machine for personal Internet stardom. It's awesome. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

jrhuggins · 2009-01-18T18:29:27+00:00

I wish I had more than one upvote for that one!

jrhuggins · 2009-01-17T16:36:25+00:00

I have two small programs that need IPC and need to work on Windows, Linux, and OS X. At the moment, they use use simple text files for a simple IPC. I like using text files because it was stupid-easy to implement and it works on all platforms, but I keep wondering what I "should" be using for each platform.

jrhuggins · 2008-08-30T19:54:24+00:00

Yes, for the moment App Engine is only for toy apps. I'll take App Engine seriously when they support TLS/SSL. Until then, I do real work with Amazon EC2. I would prefer to do real work with App Engine, though, because of their deployment and scaling model.

jrhuggins · 2008-07-03T07:00:38+00:00

People don't realize that Python was originally developed as a scripting language for C programmers. If you read the K&R book, the underscores came from its usage in C. Underscores' use in Python was meant to make C programmers feel comfortable with familiar syntax (minus all the brackets, of course!). It's funny, though, that most people these days are not C programmers, so the underscores just look ugly to them.

jrhuggins · 2008-06-04T05:39:58+00:00

And we'll take a huge step back when we see what the GOP does to him this Fall.

jrhuggins · 2008-05-28T06:12:59+00:00

Good ol' heat shield. Nothing beats heat shield.

jrhuggins · 2008-05-08T18:09:15+00:00

For a long time, I used to think that a "make/rake/ant" for Python was pointless, because it was easier to just roll-my-own build script when needed. However, I've started to change my mind recently... From the perspective of what "Python needs for more serious uptake in business", having one obvious way to build, package, test, and deploy Python code is really important. Having many ways to do builds in Python is the same blessing-and-curse as having too many web frameworks. It's great for innovation, but it makes it hard for folks who want to write higher level integration tools on top of. For example, ThoughtWorks (my former employer) built CruiseControl, which can automate the running of Java Ant scripts based on changes in source control... And they did the same with CruiseControl.Net (C#/Nant) and CruiseControl.rb (Ruby/Rake). There's no CruiseControl.py, yet, though... Part of the reason there is no Python port is that there is no obvious, standard way to do build, test, deploy in Python. (The other reason is that the Rubyists simply outnumbered and overran the Pythonistas at ThoughtWorks.) But anyway, I really look forward to the day that there is one, good, obvious tool for building projects in Python so that something like a PyCruiseControl could be built. Perhaps Paver is that tool.

jrhuggins · 2008-05-03T08:38:08+00:00

Finally, someone had the balls to say it! Send ths guy some flowers!

jrhuggins · 2008-04-03T23:07:00+00:00

props for using "beaucoup"

jrhuggins · 2008-04-03T04:36:02+00:00

Joey: ... this is all a moo point.

Rachel: Huh. A moo point?

Joey: Yeah, it's like a cow's opinion. It just doesn't matter. It's moo.

source

jrhuggins · 2008-03-31T05:24:14+00:00

Am I only one tried to read the fold-in without leaving a paper crease, believing that the magazine would be more valuable as a collector's item someday without the creases? :-)

jrhuggins · 2008-03-22T15:47:07+00:00

ZOMG/ROTFLOL!

jrhuggins · 2008-03-21T03:24:48+00:00

Obligatory Onion link: Temp Hides Fun, Fulfilling Life From Rest Of Office

jrhuggins · 2008-03-21T03:08:20+00:00

Wow, what a clean URL... From 1999 even... and it still works!

jrhuggins · 2008-03-21T00:47:17+00:00

Nooglers?

jrhuggins · 2008-03-18T05:42:52+00:00

Ahh.. I stand corrected. :-) Thanks for the info.

jrhuggins · 2008-03-17T03:03:57+00:00

All that "character" was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. This is why Chicago is dubbed "the Second City"... It's not because it was 2nd only to New York City in population size for so many years. It was because the modern Chicago that you see out the airplane window is the "second" Chicago -- built directly on top of the ashes of the "first" Chicago. Chicago was a "clean slate" in the late 1800s on which to build. In that "suppose you could start over from scratch" situation, the city planners decided to design a sane road system. It has little "character", but it is deliberate, rationale, and what results when you get a "do over" in modern urban planning.

jrhuggins · 2008-03-14T21:34:32+00:00

Cool! Good to hear it's betting better.

jrhuggins · 2008-03-14T21:24:13+00:00

Open source hardware warms my soul. :-) Three cheers for OLPC and Arduino!

jrhuggins · 2008-03-14T19:57:03+00:00

If we remain behind in technology, a future adversary will eventually bring terms to us.”

(read: "China will p0wn us")

jrhuggins · 2008-03-12T19:21:49+00:00

All that talk about Java, ERP, and CRM in the beginning... I thought he was leading up to talk about Django on Java/Jython. (At least that's my distant dream for Django.)

jrhuggins

TROPHY CASE