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It's probably most interesting to see how they implemented a service that does this. From their FAQ: "The machine consists of a tweaked Linux server running a

by pak 17y ago

It's probably most interesting to see how they implemented a service that does this. From their FAQ: "The machine consists of a tweaked Linux server running apache2 with python modules installed. Selenium RC Control is used to automatically launch and kill browser sessions. This all driven by a single python/cgi script with some additional self-written python libraries. Each user can watch her suicide action in real-time via a VNC remote desktop session, displayed on our website via an flash applet rendered live into the client's webbrowser. We are also running some customized bash scripts plus MySQL in the background for logging and debugging, jquery/PHP for the website and a modified version of the great FlashlightVNC application built in Flex. Web2.0 Suicide Machine consists of roughly 2500 lines of self-written code." Maybe somebody will build another website that lets you watch a video of the server browsing another website. I heard you like websites...

defenestrator 17y ago
Yo dogg… just kidding! What I'd like to see is this kind of code opened up so I can host it myself for fun. Writing a script to delete twitter "tweets" is easy enough in Bash but Facebook is another beast entirely :\
cakeface 17y ago
Thats brilliant to use Selenium RC for the scripted deletions. Selenium is incredibly flexible and easy to script, though not very fast which is probably why they have such a backlog. Also because it is all coming from a legitimate browser it would be very difficult for the sites to block, though I suppose they could just block the ip of the server.
- pak 17y ago
  I've used Selenium for automated webapp testing. Some people don't like it, but I've found it a good fit for the abilities and preferences of my testing team. Having scripts runnable in a Firefox plugin as they are developed, and then also from a command line server to do mass unit tests, makes for a pretty flexible testing setup. You can test against multiple browsers including IE. The major complaint people have is usually against the command arg1 arg2 grid for the scripts, but here's the thing about programming in a table: you can get your testers to do it without freaking out like "I can't learn how to program, I am bad with computer languages". The command table gives them exactly what they need--a way to repeatedly run a series of actions in a web browser--without making them learn anything more.

by pak 17y ago

defenestrator 17y ago

Yo dogg… just kidding! What I'd like to see is this kind of code opened up so I can host it myself for fun. Writing a script to delete twitter "tweets" is easy enough in Bash but Facebook is another beast entirely :\

cakeface 17y ago

Thats brilliant to use Selenium RC for the scripted deletions. Selenium is incredibly flexible and easy to script, though not very fast which is probably why they have such a backlog. Also because it is all coming from a legitimate browser it would be very difficult for the sites to block, though I suppose they could just block the ip of the server.

pak 17y ago
I've used Selenium for automated webapp testing. Some people don't like it, but I've found it a good fit for the abilities and preferences of my testing team. Having scripts runnable in a Firefox plugin as they are developed, and then also from a command line server to do mass unit tests, makes for a pretty flexible testing setup. You can test against multiple browsers including IE. The major complaint people have is usually against the command arg1 arg2 grid for the scripts, but here's the thing about programming in a table: you can get your testers to do it without freaking out like "I can't learn how to program, I am bad with computer languages". The command table gives them exactly what they need--a way to repeatedly run a series of actions in a web browser--without making them learn anything more.