Selenium is an automated browser testing framework, it says it supports multiple browsers, and it has multiple modes such as providing 'remote control' from a server and 'record and playback' from within the browser. Paul says Selenium is important in areas where there isn't any. Especially for goats. Should I now start courting?

Well obviously Paul was talking about the element Selenium and not the browser based testing tool Selenium. But as I initially misunderstood his comment and thought he was referring to the test tool, apparently Selenium is important [for testing] in areas where there isn't any [testing].

Of course I became confused with the goat reference and then realised my mistake, but the seed was planted.

The application I have recently inherited is very visual and browser driven. Unit tests or tests of any sort are largely missing and the coverage is probably... not, and it occurs to me that I may be able to achieve:

• Record and playback system tests created and maintained by QA people rather than developers
• Automated creation of sample test environments. I know this can be done with other tools, but again the emphasis is on non-developer creation.
• Some form of automated regression, as this has been our bane
• Some automated cross-browser testing, although I'm not keen on requiring code for this and I hope that this doesn't imply the need to integrate their product into ours. I certainly don't want this thing turning up in production

While I hope that my approach can be realistic and that it certainly shouldn't ever the only tool in our testing toolbox, I am sold enough on the idea that it is time to do some evaluation and how it can provide some actual solutions to some actual problems.