Almost every manual QA started with Selenium IDE or at least tried it at some point, and the retention rate is close to 0. This talk depicts the challenges that Test Automation Developers face. We categorize the challenges, name them, and see the skill set required to overcome the difficulties.
The presentation compares the different record/playback tools and explains where they excel, and where we must resort to traditional solutions, e.g. generic programming languages and the Page Object design. This talk also discusses topics such as re-use of code, component isolation, separation of concerns, APIs, as well as where test fragility stems from and how to overcome it.
Video producer: http://seleniumconf.org/