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Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by Blahah on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:08PM (#7066175)
First of all, I'm very interested in this.

Secondly, that was a very well-designed capture. You got me to give up my email, log in with GitHub, tell you how much I would pay, and then you gave me nothing. Houdini indeed!

Kudos. Now I'm waiting for my beta access email.

Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by sync on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:30PM (#7066310)
Seems like you can actually create a project on the left: https://www.monosnap.com/image/NEWTlovotIcjL5wqSYceVSFX2P7Bm...
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by Blahah on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:31PM (#7066316)
D'oh! Thanks :)
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by levlandau on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:13PM (#7066203)
@blahah Thanks for going through the flow! Working really hard to get this to you soon. Would love any feedback you have as well!
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by aantix on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:45PM (#7066397)
In the dynamic content example; with the previous showing one item and the second screen shot showing two items, what is it about the DOM structure that makes this a passing test? How do you know that the functionality wasn't suppose to update an item?

Wouldn't you at least need three tests; an initial test to show that an item is inserted into the DOM, a second test to demonstrate that the system is inserting, not updating an item, and then finally your third test that demonstrates the functionality continues to insert into the DOM?

Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by gre on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @05:53PM (#7066818)
The video demonstrates how we would like the user-assisted side of it to work. For reasons like you mention, it might require more than DOM inspection in the end. What if tweets are supposed to show in the feed four times instead of once? To achieve the right level of control I think it needs API access to the database. We are close but not completely there yet. Thanks for the feedback!
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by rogerdickey on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:51PM (#7066442)
one approach is to look at the progressive diff between the insert tests & verify that the DOM is changing in the same incremental way
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by aantix on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @05:09PM (#7066534)
That was my point; a "progressive diff" isn't just two samples. At test sample #2, whether an item inserts or updates, either could be correct at that point.
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by _random_ on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @05:14PM (#7066555)
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by pyramation on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @06:30PM (#7066989)
yep, Houdini is a special effects software build by Side Effects, Inc., I used to work for them actually. Great company.
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by sync on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:29PM (#7066290)
Looks really promising if it can work on complex dynamic sites!

The sample script provided is totally incorrect though:

  <script src="//cdn.tryhoudini.com/houdini.js"></script>
  Houdini.init("xxxx")
  Houdini.startListening();
Missing a script tag around `Houduni.init ... Houdini.startListening()`
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by randy_burden on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @08:42PM (#7067507)
This concept of testing seems strange and very limiting when it comes to the assertions you wish to make. If you post "Hello World!" I would want to test that in my post feed there is a post from myself ( Assertion 1 ) and the contents is "Hello World!" ( Assertion 2 ). I don't see how this form of snapshot testing would accomplish this. Am I missing something?
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by pud on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:50PM (#7066434)
This looks awesome. Scared to put the Javascript on my site though, because it's unclear to me how the embedded Javascript will be able to differentiate me (the site owner) from regular users.

I don't want regular users seeing the "1 test generated" thing on each page. Maybe clarify this a little on the page where you give me the Javascript snippet.

Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by levlandau on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @05:02PM (#7066496)
Will definitely clarify this on the dashboard. Users of the site won't see those notifications for sure. Those are configurable and you'd only use those on your dev environments.
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by freerobby on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:44PM (#7066396)
Major "thank you" for doing github login without requiring me to hand over my private repositories.
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by levlandau on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:48PM (#7066417)
Thanks for the feedback! Definitely trying to be reasonable :) Definitely welcome any other suggestions!
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by BjoernKW on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @05:50PM (#7066801)
Very cool. I recently had an idea along those lines. Good to see someone's building something in this area. Will it be possible to generate CasperJS- or Selenium-compatible test scripts from Houdini so tests can be run in a CI environment, too?
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by levlandau on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @06:00PM (#7066853)
Thanks! Yes we plan to make this possible. We've got a decent number of requests for similar functionality.
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by katowulf on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:18PM (#7066230)
A great looking tool! Can't wait to try it out on a few hundred projects :)
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by hack_info_get on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @05:30PM (#7066663)
Would be recommending this to the QA folks at work. Thanks for sharing!
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by firebunnytime on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:14PM (#7066207)
This is intriguing. If those guys get it to work on complex, real-world web sites I think they can build a serious business around this. I'm gonna give this a try. Best of luck!
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by digiru on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:21PM (#7066246)
Awesome!! I hate testing..
Re:Show HN: Houdini – A new way to test web apps by hack_info_get on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @04:19PM (#7066237)
this is great! Takes web development to a whole new level