So what's next Selenium?

Well woke up with an itch to write. Too many posts, articles, talks, and a few conferences happened around past few days. Trying to capture the essence of it all my way..so here it is.. a question - So what's next Selenium? Another 20 for you, or should I put you in a box for good... I find it funny when people share stories about your death.. its cute. I have seen such stories earlier as well when some cool toys built over you came out, and I am seeing it all yet again, when some other toys are now finding their fame. I want to congratulate them all. Good for you! Selenium, let me tell you an answer you can give, you see I heard that one from someone important in my country. Just say you are a non-biological entity, which means you are beyond life and death. Ok. :), in real sense you are a non biological entity .. ah well.

Having said that isn't it true. Tools like Selenium and on Selenium, and like Selenium are many. And some aren't like Selenium at all.. but well..

Rather Selenium itself is like something built earlier, and that must have been derived from something built earlier.. That is not important, important is we understand the why, the what, and the how of anything which is out there and learn, knowing some history always helps.

Ok another news - 2.5 Million downloads of Selenium was reported, and python bindings ruling the chart.

The link to the post is here -https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/selenium_seleniumconf-20yearsofselenium-activity-7210360832071761920-6oHE?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop. So, Python not Java.. well some may be intrigued. Selenium for Python has been around for a while now. I know because I understand that Selenium can be used for a lot of things other than testing. Sorry to break this news, maybe the other toys out there is the market don't have this super power and confine its users to just test, and some to languages. Well Selenium isn't limited by what you want to use it for. Python has been the language of choice for web scraping, for intensive data farms, and yes for AI. One of the most well accepted courses I taught was- Selenium with Python, rather my first book is on Selenium with Python. The book is -https://www.amazon.in/Selenium-Python-Beginners-Pallavi-Sharma/dp/9389328810

No I won't recommend you to buy it, it was written for Selenium version 2.0. My first ever book, I made mistakes as in people expected more. Got mixed reviews, but whatever I have written there, maybe less , I can write better now as I know more, but anyways that knowledge there is still valid and may help you pick things if interested. On similar lines when I use to actively teach, my recorded lectures I have put on udemy - you can find here -https://www.udemy.com/course/selenium-python/?couponCode=IND21PM

You may also enjoy reading the comments I got on this... Ok now coming back.

At the conference, in the end keynote Jason talked about a GTAC 2007 talk with Simon. I found the link from one of his tweets, if interested here it is -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlz-WmcrBL8 . What I felt after hearing the talk was the power and benefit the world gets when a few like minded people come together. It is true for great things, for things which are timeless to be made, for things created for larger good like standards like WebDriver- https://www.w3.org/TR/webdriver2/ is, many like minded people join hands and forces together. And when that happens the world benefits.

Yet another in making is the WebDriver BiDi standards - https://w3c.github.io/webdriver-bidi/. At the Browserless conference, heard a few talks about it, and realized so many people from different organizations, projects are coming together to create yet another standard which will benefit the world of automation. Talks by Mattihas and Diego will give you a good idea on this, and maybe some others are there out, but these were the ones I attended, do see this -https://www.browserconference.com/replays/. I would sincerely recommend listening to Diego's talk on Selenium, if you are an Selenium enthusiast.

About BiDi from Selenium website, if you wish to explore further and maybe contribute to building of the standards visit this link -https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/webdriver/bidirectional/, and if get a chance do hear to Puja Jagani's talk at the Selenium conference, and the keynote by Jim Evans.

So what's next? Collaboration, recognition, acceptance, understanding, knowledge and responsibility.

At the Selenium conference(https://2024.seleniumconf.in/#speakers) there was a talk by Serhii Bryt, on using Playwright with Selenium/Selenide. If you see the talk as and when it gets published just observe the different tools, solutions built over tools coming together to achieve an end objective. And that is one example, I am sure there are many out there and that is where the power lies.

The power lies in learning, in knowing, in accepting all possible solutions so that the work you are trying to do gets done. The power lies in the ability to unlearn what you know and make space for new. The power lies in your ability to understand that among all the hype, the noise where is the truth you seeking exists.

To learnings, to the next 20 years of Selenium, I hope i am around to see it flourish. On a lighter note came across this tweet - https://x.com/hugs/status/1804245248677474500 , just want to say.. I guess if around, i will be cheering in the audience like for the 20th.

Thank you for reading this one folks.. until next time!