[dba-Tech] FYI: Moving to "nirvana": if Microsoft were to shift to WebKit, you can thank Opera.

Jim Lawrence accessd at shaw.ca
Thu Feb 14 12:24:41 CST 2013


Hi Shamil:

Just a question and a comment on this "browser automation".

Isn't this built around the concept of adding Plugins into you browser so
features can be extended to the desktop? Is this not very proprietary code
and not extendable to any other browser...in other words a developer would
have to make a plugin for every browser and desktop OS supported?

My personal belief is that plugins should be avoided where at all possible.
Plugins have been used by so many malware products so I tend to be very
untrusting of that whole concept of that type of development. Plugins can
even be used to bridge between the browser's protected sandbox concept and
the desktop...very dangerous. 

A couple of years ago a company automated the concept of attaching their
plugin to any browser that viewed their web site. It resulted in your
desktop being replaced and then it would prompt you to contact their site
for a solution to remove the malware at the price of $29. Browser security
has since been improved.   

IMHO, if particular functionality is required it should either be coded
directly into the FE or BE of your web page, where at all possible or no
plugin should be allowed unless they have been vetted through one of the
many app stores. In addition, does not this coding method defeats the whole
concept of "write once, play everywhere"?
 
Jim  

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Salakhetdinov
Shamil
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 3:26 AM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] FYI: Moving to "nirvana": if Microsoft were to shift
to WebKit, you can thank Opera.

 Hi Hans --

<<<
This is interesting. Could you possibly provide a few examples of where it
is used in a manner that is important in some way?
>>>
To Automate web applications testing:  http://watin.org/documentation/  (
http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cXeloE2gh )

To Automate repetitive tasks when web browsing is a part of a larger desktop
application, e.g.

" Efficient data entry through browser automation"

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/338036/BrowserAutomationCrawler

" Microsoft Web Browser Automation using C#"

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/5452/Microsoft-Web-Browser-Automation-us
ing-C

The above is just a generic example - for that case Google API can be used
of course but there could be many other cases when there is no any web API
and (as I noted above) web browsing functionality is a part of a larger
desktop application.

In the past (no web services/no web APIs) Microsoft Web Browser Automation
was used in (VB6/VBA) apps for web crawling/scraping....

To see more examples browse: 
http://www.codeproject.com/search.aspx?q=web+browser+automation&x=0&y=0&sbo=
kw&pgnum=5

or google by "microsoft web browser automation".

-- Shamil

P.S. I guess Microsoft Web Browser Automation is also used in Selenium (
http://docs.seleniumhq.org/docs/index.jsp ) for IE testing automation...

Четверг, 14 февраля 2013, 1:36 -08:00 от Hans-Christian Andersen
<hans.andersen at phulse.com>:
>
>> AFAIK Web Browser Automation is widely used.
>
>This is interesting. Could you possibly provide a few examples of where it
is used in a manner that is important in some way?
>
>- Hans
>
>
>On 2013-02-14, at 1:32 AM, Salakhetdinov Shamil < mcp2004 at mail.ru > wrote:
>
>> <<<
>> Is this actually a critical issue for most people? Is it an issue that
cannot be solved by either forking
>> IE into two versions - IE and IE Classic? Or perhaps having a
compatibility layer, like what already 
>> exists in IE, so that some things can use Trident if needed, while the
main engine remains WebKit?
>>>>> 
>> AFAIK Web Browser Automation is widely used.
>> AFAIU (I can be wrong) Web Browser Automation "ties" could have been the
source of IE's previous (before IE10) versions "slowness", "memory
hungriness/leakages" etc.
>> Still Microsoft could "kill" it as they did with VB6 and other
technologies but as we can see with IE10 Microsoft have done a lot of work
to fix the prev. IE versions issues. I doubt they would want to "throw away"
all that work. And compatibility layer could result in Microsoft IE10 and
new versions rendering/JavaScript interpretation code optimization results
getting (partially) lost. I can be completely wrong. I do not know how IE
code base is organized internally.
>> 
>> -- Shamil
>> 
>> 
>> Четверг, 14 февраля 2013, 1:04 -08:00 от Hans-Christian Andersen <
hans.andersen at phulse.com >:
>>> 
>>>> - because of the fact that IE and its rendering and Javascript
interpretation engine(s) should be tightly coupled with Web Browser
Automation and so it could be very hard to "cut/refactor that Automation
ties" without breaking a lot of custom software using Web Browser Automation
features.
>>> 
>>> Is this actually a critical issue for most people? Is it an issue that
cannot be solved by either forking IE into two versions - IE and IE Classic?
Or perhaps having a compatibility layer, like what already exists in IE, so
that some things can use Trident if needed, while the main engine remains
WebKit?
>>> 
>>> - Hans
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 2013-02-14, at 12:18 AM, Salakhetdinov Shamil <  mcp2004 at mail.ru >
wrote:
>>> 
>>>> <<<
>>>> As I have expressed previously here, I have my fingers crossed that
Microsoft will follow suit.
>>>>>>> 
>>>> I'd not mind :) ... but I doubt it will happen (real soon if ever):
>>>> 
>>>> - first of all because as we all know "Microsoft is not following
standards but they create them" :) and 
>>>> - because of the fact that IE and its rendering and Javascript
interpretation engine(s) should be tightly coupled with Web Browser
Automation and so it could be very hard to "cut/refactor that Automation
ties" without breaking a lot of custom software using Web Browser Automation
features.
>>>> 
>>>> -- Shamil
>> <<< skipped >>>
>>> 
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