Unlocking Robot Framework: RoboCon HELSINKI with Gerwin Laagland, Markus Stahl and Stavroula Ventoura

tgdGerwinUnlockingRobotFramework-RoboConHELSINKI529.mp3

[00:00:00] In a land of testers, far and wide they journeyed. Seeking answers, seeking skills, seeking a better way. Through the hills they wandered, through treacherous terrain. But then they heard a tale, a podcast they had to obey. Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. Guiding testers with automation awesomeness. From ancient realms to modern days, they lead the way. Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. With lutes and lyres, the bards began their song. A tune of knowledge, a melody of code. Through the air it spread, like wildfire through the land. Guiding testers, showing them the secrets to behold. Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. Guiding testers with automation awesomeness. From ancient realms to modern days, they lead the way. Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. With lutes and lyres, the bards began their song. A tune of knowledge, a melody of code. Through the air it spread, like wildfire through the land. Guiding testers, showing them the secrets to behold.

[00:00:35] Joe Colantonio Hey, it's Joe and welcome to another episode of The Test Guild Automation Podcast. Today, we'll be talking with Gerwin, Marcus, and Stavroula all about automation with Robot Framework, they are three seasoned experts and also enthusiasts about the Robot Framework and they are going to be speaking at the next RoboCon I think it's 8 annual happen in Helsinki. So if you want a good reason to go to Helsinki and want a good reason to do so, grab a ticket now, head on over to RoboCon.io and you'll be able to experience these speakers live and in person. You don't want to miss it. Check it out using the link down below. Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Guild.

[00:01:12] Gerwin Laagland Thank you, Joe.

[00:01:13] Markus Stahl Hey, thanks.

[00:01:14] Stavroula Ventoura Hello.

[00:01:15] Joe Colantonio Hey, great to have you all. Really curious to know before we get into it. There's so many tools out there. Why the Robot Framework? So I'll go how I see left to right, Gerwin, any thoughts like how did you experience Robot Framework and how did you become like, almost an enthusiast about it?

[00:01:29] Gerwin Laagland So for me, it was mostly I wanted to do test automation, but I didn't want to focus on the programing of the language so much. And Robot Framework allowed me to actually do sort of the programing without actually doing the nitty gritty details of it. And it sped up my work a lot, which is why I started using it.

[00:01:49] Joe Colantonio Very nice. How about you, Marcus?

[00:01:51] Markus Stahl I found it by accident, so I thought I was a Java developer and I want to build something with JBehave then I joined this company, and they used something called Robot Framework. And I was like, What's that? Never heard of what I was like, Go for JBehave and kick Robot Framework. But then the first day they showed this to me and I was like, this is what I wanted to do. And since then I did not have any reason to switch. So whenever there is like a challenge because it is a framework, it is very open, it has a very open API, then I can build some clue code or I usually find someone in the community or it if is for me. So after eight years I didn't find any showstopper.

[00:02:30] Stavroula Ventoura Okay. So I've been working in Nokia since 2009 and about half a year later Pekka Klärck and Izmar came and they said, here's Robot Framework and this is how you will do automation right now. Because before that we were like writing scripts. It was all the chaos. And then suddenly they were like, Oh there the Finns who came to teach us something new. Wow. And then we're all excited and that's it. It's short story.

[00:02:57] Joe Colantonio Cool. I mean, you started from ground zero then because it sounds like that's pretty much when it started.

[00:03:03] Stavroula Ventoura Yes, Almost like us, I think finished with the thesis Robot Framework first was around 2008 ish. Immediately, and Nokia, I believe in automation tool.

[00:03:15] Gerwin Laagland The interesting thing is that in 2005, I think it was the first version. So like the upcoming RoboCon that we're having is going to be 20 years till date. And that means that's why the theme is going to be like from Finland with Love.

[00:03:32] Stavroula Ventoura Is when it started being implemented, but it was finished I think around 2008.

[00:03:36] Speaker 2 And that's a testament to how it's still being used at a company 20 years after the fact. A lot of times people try the latest and greatest and it doesn't work for them when you have a tried and true framework. So one thing I've noticed is for some reason, maybe it's just in the U.S, it doesn't Robot Framework gets as much love as some of the other tools. I'm always shocked when I post a RoboCon because it seems like it does everything. So any thoughts on why maybe we'll may not know as much about Robot Framework as I think they should. I think you just did a meet up in Athens. They look very successful. Any thoughts on how to get people more aware of it?

[00:04:10] Stavroula Ventoura I think we just need to have more of this events and going to more conferences and advertising it, because I don't think people know about it, especially here in Greece or they are a bit afraid of using it because they are saying, okay, I'm doing something very specific. I will use Java or I will just use Python, but they don't understand that it's easier to use Robot Framework. Everything is implemented. They don't have to implement everything from scratching it.

[00:04:35] Markus Stahl I also think that probably other tools have company behind it, even though they have an open source model, they also have a company behind it and they have a business model and they need to earn money. So they also invest into marketing. Behind Robot Framework is the Robot Framework Foundation, and we have really tight budgets and we just use it for funding ecosystem projects, creating the conference and funding the co-development of Robot Framework. But we don't have a huge amount of budget for doing marketing or market research, so we actually don't know how popular it is. We only have indicators like downloads or site visits and so on, especially in the last 2 or 3 years when you go out and talk to people, then suddenly they say, By the way, we use this thing called Robot Framework. And I'm saying, I know this. Suddenly you get this feedbacks loop not the only one anymore. So I assume it grew organically over the past few years, over the past maybe 20 years, and now in the past three, four years. It's really accelerating. It's going through the roof from our perspective.

[00:05:35] Gerwin Laagland Another perspective that you could look at is that what Robot Framework does is provide an abstraction layer above the technology that is used by a lot of people. So, for example, let's take Playwright, the technology is very popular, very present, and a lot of people know how to use it. But Robot Framework does is sit above that technology, make it more accessible by providing keyboards to drive Playwright. When we're talking about Robot Framework, a lot of people tend to confuse the underlying technology with Robot Framework or the other way around, and that also makes the conversation sometimes a bit difficult because you want to first separate the two before you start continue on with the conversation.

[00:06:16] Joe Colantonio Now it's a great point. Playwright is the hot new tool, and a lot of people think that choosing between Robot Framework and Selenium or Playwright and it's not true that you're actually getting a benefit or a bonus on top of it almost seems like.

[00:06:27] Gerwin Laagland That is correct. So for example, if you use Robot Framework in a specific situation, you can actually say I would like to use the Selenium technology, but you can also switch that out completely and go to the Playwright technology and not have any additional work for.

[00:06:45] Markus Stahl I think it's always difficult for new users to grasp what Robot Framework actually does. When you are a front end developer and you want to test your website, you probably go with plain Playwright because that's the challenge you have. And you know, probably TypeScript or JavaScript, whatever frontend language you use. And if you remain a team like this that you are on in front of developers and you're a front end developers testing frontend, then you're probably better off with Playwright. But as soon as we have someone in there like a to a QA team that is primary focus is not front of development, but like assessing requirements and testing requirements. You have like a different group of people that they are not developers and then you need like a common ground and that is then Robot Framework. And then also once those people come in, they probably don't only test your front and they also maybe test your backend and they make some end to end tests. You don't have only web automation, but maybe other disciplines as well. Maybe you even need to automate some desktop application. Who knows what freaking integration you need? And then as soon as they need to access a different system under test, then Playwright won't be enough anymore. You need some other backend and Robot Framework just brings these libraries and they can switch between web browser and desktop application and mobile and database and so on like in one test case if you like.

[00:08:00] Stavroula Ventoura Exactly. In my company we have to test so many different things. You have to test servers, web pages, different interfaces and REST CLI, Netconf, .... and all of this is done Robot Framework really easily. And the good thing is that it's global with a company and every product uses that and they said there's no other framework. That's it. We love it. No, No, it's true.

[00:08:27] Joe Colantonio I know when you think about it is kind of true because a lot of the frameworks just do browsers and this more like end-to-end testing and it's able to handle pretty much when you work at an enterprise like the company work at ...., it probably handles pretty much all your testing needs. So you don't have to try to glue all these other things technologies together. It's already glued for you and working smoothly, sounds like.

[00:08:48] Stavroula Ventoura And the good part is that it can also implement your own library if something is not covered and you have something like a real local need, you can just do that and implement a keyboard and just integrate it easily.

[00:08:57] Joe Colantonio And that's a good point because you work in, I think, an R&D, correct? So I assume you're working with technology sometimes that isn't very common. So is that something you do all the time?

[00:09:05] Stavroula Ventoura You mean the Cradle Library? Yes. for some thing, we do. For example, we have to handle external instruments. So we have to have global remote commands for this. We have to create keyboard and functions for that. So it's easier for us and we just integrate it, no test.

[00:09:22] Joe Colantonio Love it. All right. Obviously this is a framework that's very useful. It's been around for 20 years and I think people should know more about it. And that's why I'm really excited about the Helsinki event, the 8 annual RoboCon, so that maybe we dive into pretty much what are you going to be doing there where your sessions are? I think we'd start with you going, are you doing a session on The Joys of Robot Framework? What's your session going to be about?

[00:09:43] Gerwin Laagland Yes, exactly. My first RoboCon was in 2024 and I was super excited about it and heard a few of these talks and I wanted to share my excitement with people and give back to the community, so to speak. And one of the things that really struck me is how much joy people were getting from the events, but also from just me using it as well. And I wanted to go through that process step by step and share why people get so excited by it. Like when you start out or what you start learning about it, or when you make it more context specific. And finally, when you give back and start to contribute, what are reasons why people would continue onwards with it and stick with it?

[00:10:25] Joe Colantonio Maybe what's the main reason are the two main reasons without giving away your whole session?

[00:10:29] Gerwin Laagland I feel that like the core and my love would completely agree with this is the community. Like the people that surround the ecosystem that Robot Framework has is just it's such a friendly environment and it just is such an encouraging environment where you just keep finding help and they keep giving ideas. And I feel that that is the main core. That's the core and the heart of my talk, obviously.

[00:10:56] Joe Colantonio So, Marcus, I think this could be the 3rd or 4th year I'm hosting the online event and I know you've been involved pretty much in every single one. What's your session going to be on and why does it seem like you come back for more every year?

[00:11:08] Markus Stahl My session will be give a workshop together with .... from the University of ..... We will automate distributed Robot Framework workloads and orchestrate them within BPM workflow engine, which is really cool thing to do. So like process visualization and so on and so forth. And we will orchestrate complex test workflows. Why I do this every year? Yes, I have been at the first RoboCon online. I remember that one very well with you. But my first one was in 2019. And until then I was like, it wasn't this small five people team. I had this tool that I just knew for a year Robot Framework, and I thought, it's like some rock tool from the Internet and was working very well and I was pondering my head about challenges and so on, and we found solutions and utilized the tool. And then I went to the conference and then I realized, wow! It's not just a small tool. It's not just not me and my four colleagues or something, it's like a world wide thing. I'm not the only one. And everyone is like having similar challenges. Maybe they already solved it or they didn't solve it yet and they excited to talk to me or they even started their challenge in a better way. And they can go home, listen to those people from the other company. They did it this way and now we have the contacts. And now then the community is like connecting and growing. And that was like mind blowing. I was thinking I would go to some tech conference and just listen to really sophisticated talks, but it was everyone there on stage as an engineer or as an engineer background and did something with a tool and just presents the use case and the learnings. And you go back home with a backpack full of new ideas and impulses. And that's just it's amazing. It's my highlight of the year.

[00:12:53] Joe Colantonio Awesome. And Stacy? What are going to be doing at RoboCon. You seem really fun. A lot of energy. Are you bringing that energy and awesomeness to the event?

[00:13:01] Stavroula Ventoura Of course, I'll be in the front seat, the after party. Come and find me there.

[00:13:07] Gerwin Laagland Yes, she should.

[00:13:08] Stavroula Ventoura Also in the coffee breaks I'll be around. But after party. Sure, I'll bring ....

[00:13:14] Joe Colantonio Stacy, do you have a session or are you part of the committee? What's going on?

[00:13:18] Stavroula Ventoura No, I'm just an enthusiast. I just love the energy that the RoboCon gives me. And I truly believe in the framework and its people. I just want to participate and I just want to help however I can.

[00:13:30] Joe Colantonio Awesome. So are there any sessions or speakers that you see that you like Oh, I can't wait to see the session or speaker in person.

[00:13:37] Stavroula Ventoura All of them. I really because I can listen to old speakers, which I know, but I'm really excited for new speakers I'm really excited about ... can't wait to see online.

[00:13:49] Joe Colantonio Someone with as much experience as you have at Robot Framework, do you still learn something new when you go to these events?

[00:13:54] Stavroula Ventoura Yes, of course. And we were a bit cut off because in here, in Greece, nobody used to use Robot Framework, so we were a bit cut off of the community, but I bumped accidentally a bump into the RoboCon 2019 and I'm like Oh I missed that, How can I attend? So I tried and I got a free tickets from RoboCon and I joined 2020 and it was like for me, I was like a kid going to Disney World. I'm like, I'm super excited, but I feel so small, insignificant. What all these people that know so much, they're experts. I don't know anything about that, but get to know. I got to know people. I remember I met Rene who spoke about Diadrive and he replaced that and I'm like Oh, I just did something like that. I want to tell you do that. The top people about the coffee break and he sat down with me and we just did some coding and it blew my mind. I'm like, Wow, they're just people so enthusiast and they support this and I can ask questions. I can learn from them. Ever since I'm going there all the time, I don't miss it for the world because every time I learn something new or I meet a new person, I meet their experiences. We debug online or side by side and that's it. I love it.

[00:15:10] Markus Stahl Yes, I can just underline this. I also learn every time something new because I only know like the business where I'm working in and how I play Robot Framework. But since it is so universal, you learn at events like RoboCon, you learn also the other use cases, for instance, the roulette, a really nice use case where they have to provide the same functionality through different interfaces. They have to have the same test case. But the different implementation of the test steps, but the test specification has to remain the same. And this is something that never crossed my mind at this challenge. Usually, in my fields is like I have one interface that has to be enough. You don't provide the same stuff over five interfaces. And then she was explaining in a talk how she and her team solve that. And that's also triggered. Maybe, I don't have this use case yet, but how they solved it, that was a very neat thing that I take with me in my backpack and I know I can take it out whenever I have a solution. I think I could use this idea.

[00:16:05] Gerwin Laagland There one of the talks that we had 2024 was, for example, how to adjust reporting to make it more accessible to management. It's not particularly a problem for me. I love more logs that have all the logs and all the entries in it, but the someone at the bank actually changed their logs to make it more accessible for management to read it. And that's a use case that you would usually not bump into. But they made like a piece of functionality that people could access and showcased to the rest of the Robot Framework community, allowing other people to go like, I can use Robot Framework and people that wouldn't use it still would understand what comes out of it, which I think is like an excellent way of learning new things and how to use it.

[00:16:51] Joe Colantonio Absolutely. I know on the online event, I assume they do this on site is the last day is dedicated to I forget what they call it. It's like a hands on session where you can almost do like group coding or group mentoring, I think or like you. Is that Marcus, you're shaking your head. Is that, do know what that's called or what I'm talking about?

[00:17:08] Markus Stahl Yes. Yes, yes. In the onsite event, this is call it the Community Day. And this year it happened. It's the first day of the conference. We have the conference on Thursday or Friday, on Wednesday, other workshops, and on Tuesdays the community day. Everyone, who's already in town goes there. And either it's like an open space. You bring your topic, you ask questions, maybe you find people who have the same challenges as you are, and then you debate or even code a solution or you even have like a proof of concept, of a new library, of a new approach or something. And then you find people who are interested and then you sit together and do some live coding and in the end you present it. And this time, there will be on Friday afternoon, the slot before the last, I think there will be lightning talks. If you have created something cool and would like to grow your audience with on a topic that you have developed during the community day, you can picture there in 5 or 10 minutes. I don't know how long the lightning talks are, but you can picture there and get immediate feedback. And if you are afraid of going on stage and pitching something, I think RoboCon is the best place to learn or to try out being on stage because there are people like you even when you stumble or if you say the wrong word or you forget the word, or you breathe really fast and because you're nervous, everyone out there feels with you and you always get positive feedback. There have been talks, but I thought all this wasn't really necessary. But when I talk with people afterwards, with the audience, there was always every talk hit like their friend group. There's always only positive feedback and it's a really great place to learn being on stage. If you have stage fright, go to RoboCon. It's the best medicine.

[00:18:51] Gerwin Laagland The outcome for a safe or as they call it, is very community driven and it's personally one of the highlights for me because it's very informal and people actually vote with their feet. If you are no longer interested in a subject, you can just walk through a different one. It's very open and therefore allows for a lot of creativity and a lot of feedback around you. You always get surprised with the topics that people raise and learn a lot from it as well. It's a much more accessible format than when you do just a presentation for a group of over 300 people.

[00:19:25] Joe Colantonio Love it. And it sounds like Stacy, based on your experience, like you said, you would there one of them and you talked to Rene, you made it seem like people really are they open to being approached? And I like helping people out. I'm an introvert. I'd be terrified, but it sounds like that's not the experience. Maybe that it's like at RoboCon?

[00:19:41] Stavroula Ventoura Yes. In the beginning you think they're like, they're like the rock stars of a band. So like, I have to be really careful. But then you turn up, they're just like coders. Test engineers, that's like you. You come and you say, Hey, can I ask you about something you said? Yes, sure, of course. And everybody's so willing to help you out and also to share their experiences and try to solve your problem. And I think that's the amazing thing about it. That's the most important thing that you find other people who might have the same problems, who have a solution, who have tried other solutions, and they can guide you through that. And you can really ask anybody for help, anybody just like people walking by the coffee break. Hey, can I ask you? Yes, you can ask me, no problem.

[00:20:26] Gerwin Laagland We have no bouncers at this event, as far as I'm aware, anyway.

[00:20:31] Markus Stahl Yeah. So they are really no rockstars. But if you are from outside and you go out with them for the first time, of course you have this respect approaching these people. I remember that when I went to my first RoboCon, we had a pull request and provide it earlier that year. And Tatu Aalto was like the king of the Selenium Library back in the days, he had discussed the pull request and finally had approved it. And then the after party happened to sit next to him. We both drinking beer and I was really nervous because he was like Mr. Selenium Library. And then I talked with him about the pull request because I mentioned and he said, yeah, I remember that pull request and then we had a really nice conversation and I realized during the conversation, he's just like me. I mean, he does something that you're passionate about, but he's just a normal guy and he can be really casual with him.

[00:21:18] Gerwin Laagland I think that that is also one of the bigger advantages of a RoboCon is that you meet the people that are behind the GitHub handle. When you're raising issues, it's always a bit scary like am I going to get my head chewed off or not? And then it turns out they're very nice online. And then as you meet them online, you still like you have still that distance. Then once you then meet the people on sites and face to face in person, it just is a similar experience and it's just wonderful. I can recommend it for anyone.

[00:21:52] Joe Colantonio Love it. One thing about someone that's never been to Helsinki, you give me one thing of why they definitely want to go to the on site event happening to RoboCon.io to get a ticket for the on site version in Helsinki. Stacy, any different from Athens? Like what makes you think of Helsinki? I can't wait for this one thing is going to be off the hook because it's in Helsinki.

[00:22:10] Stavroula Ventoura For me, the most important thing is that I will actually meet the people and I will have to interact. And each time you meet a person, it's totally different. You have a different magic about it. There's a moment you share. There's a bond. You're not afraid to ask something because it's not written and once they are online all the time, forever and haunt you all the time because you asked the stupid questions. Because there you see, there's no stupid questions. You're not afraid. You just say, hey, maybe it could be stupid, but can I ask you something? And apart from that's for me is Helsinki. I love Helsinki. I used to study as an exchange student, and for me, I just love being there. Being in architecture, sound, the snow cold, of course, I love cold. And I can't wait to see you there.

[00:22:55] Markus Stahl Yes. So adding to that, maybe being away. The RoboCon online is also a good experience, but you still can like easier hides behind your screen and not intact. And here you will bump into someone at the buffet or something at lunch or something and exchange something, or someone makes a comment about you or your spec that you're wearing and then you immediately have a connection. And probably most important work cannot interrupt your visit there. So you don't have like a teams open on the side of your screen and they like interrupting the talk that you're streaming and you kind of say, Ah, you know what, I just work now for the next half an hour and I will look the recording afterwards. And we all know this happens like in 1 or 10 cases that you watch the recording afterwards.

[00:23:38] Stavroula Ventoura Yeah, for me, it's definitely to just get inspired with a group of people that are there and to just gain more insights, to just have that idea of like, this is how solutions can be implemented as well, and to just talk about work without actually being like, I don't know, considered weird.

[00:23:59] Gerwin Laagland You don't just go to the conference. It's like a magnify is if you go to the online event, of course you together with the other people all the time. But it's different if you are together with the people all the time on site. Everyone's like in this two or 3 or 4 days process of thinking about their work and just getting really excited, maybe building something, maybe even presenting the results in the enlightening in the end, everyone is there for a visit, so everyone has to go somewhere for dinner, has to go somewhere for lunch or something. So you also connect afterwards. So after this week, usually I really need like 2 or 3 days of holiday because I was and the excitement for such a long time. Yes, it was exciting, but it was also about work and then need some time to cool down afterwards because it was just so, so much adrenaline and excitement for such a long time.

[00:24:47] Joe Colantonio I highly recommend everyone check out the onsite experience in Helsinki using the link down below.

[00:24:52] Thanks again for your automation awesomeness. The links of everything we value we covered in this episode. Head in over to testguild.com/a529. And if the show has helped you in any way, why not rate it and review it in iTunes? Reviews really help in the rankings of the show and I read each and every one of them. So that's it for this episode of the Test Guild Automation Podcast. I'm Joe, my mission is to help you succeed with creating end-to-end, full-stack automation awesomeness. As always, test everything and keep the good. Cheers.

[00:25:26] Hey, thank you for tuning in. It's incredible to connect with close to 400,000 followers across all our platforms. And over 40,000 email subscribers were at the forefront of automation testing in DevOps. If you haven't yet, join our vibrant community at Test Guild dot com. When you become part of our elite circle driving innovation, software testing and automation, and if you're a true provider or have a service looking to empower our guild with solutions that elevate skills and tackle real world challenges, we're excited to collaborate. Visit Test Guild dot info to explore how we can create transformative experiences together. Let's push the boundaries of what we can achieve.

[00:26:09] Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. With lutes and lyres, the bards began their song. A tune of knowledge, a melody of code. Through the air it spread, like wildfire through the land. Guiding testers, showing them the secrets to behold.