I had time over the holidays to binge watch last years Selenium Conference talks, which was as awesome, if not more so, as the talks during the 2015 conference. Automation in testing has really come a long way, alongside the advancements in technology and software development, and this brings forth new challenges for all of us who test software. It’s not just about Selenium anymore. Mobile automation still proves to be challenging, and soon we’ll have to build repeatable test scenarios for the internet of things – homes, vehicles, stores, among others. Software testing can only get more interesting by the year.

Here are my picks for the best talks from the conference, if you’re curious:

• Zen and the Art of Open Source Maintenance (by Simon Stewart, about how software fails a lot of the time and yet things can still work and is a good thing, about how writing code is actually about people, and about open source projects)
• The Screenplay Pattern – a SOLID alternative to Page Objects (by Antony Marcano, about how the page-object pattern has a problem with satisfying the open-closed principle and what alternative can we use)
• The State of Browser Automation with JavaScript (by Umar Hansa, about how browser automation using javascript has improved in recent years)
• StarDriver Enterprise – Appium to the Future (by Jonathan Lipps, about how the Appium project has exploded from mobile apps automation to including television and desktop apps automation, and their plans for the future)
• Robots – The Nuclear Option (by Jason Huggins, about test scenarios where robots can definitely aid in automation, and about how robots bring more fun into automating things)
• Big Data makes the Flake go Away (by Dave Cadwallader, about flaky tests and how leveraging data analysis can help us combat the problem)
• Advanced Test Automation Techniques for Responsive Apps and Sites (by Adam Carmi, about testing responsive web applications and where Applitools Eyes can assist)
• Continuously Testing Online, Interactive Curriculum at Code.org (by Brian Jordan, about the journey of Code.org to testing their sites using Selenium)