Software that works.
In production.

Testing a web application with Playwright

Testing web applications can be painful. Browsers are slow, tests are flaky, and setting up the right driver version is a chore. Playwright is a browser automation library from Microsoft that takes away some of that pain. It manages browser downloads for you, waits for elements automatically, and comes with built-in assertions that make your tests more reliable.

In this post, we will build a small web application that lists products and then write two tests for it using Playwright for Java. You will need basic Java knowledge to follow along. All the code you need is included.

Why I still blog in 2026

It is 2026 and I still have a blog. Not because it is cool. Not because it is trendy. Blogging stopped being fashionable years ago. I keep writing because it is one of the best ways I know to actually learn things.

TDD with an AI assistant, my perspective as a beginning practitioner

I have been practising Test-Driven Development for more than 25 years. The red-green-refactor cycle is second nature.

I have of course heard a lot about AI tools and LLMs over the last couple of years. The times I have tried them, I have not been impressed. Their proposals didn't compile. They seemed to solve the wrong problem. This was probably because they lacked the context of the project I'm working on. Honestly, a lot of what I have seen has been rubbish.

Not too long ago I saw a thread on LinkedIn where some people who I know really know what they are doing discussed their experience with AI assistants and specifically Claude Code. I decided to give it a try.