Selenium News and Updates: A Smattering of Selenium 90

What was in “A Smattering of Selenium #90”? Adam Goucher’s June 19, 2012 roundup was a short collection of links about programming and testing, rather than a Selenium release announcement. It touched on programmers’ assumptions about time, concurrency and parallelism, Netflix’s “Cloud Monkeys,” Python introspection, Selenium WebDriver helpers, jQuery with Selenium, record-and-playback humor, testing and checking, and Pragmatic Unicode. Treat it as an archival snapshot: the post points to third-party material, but does not establish whether those projects, links, or recommendations remain current.

What the 2012 post says

The official Selenium blog lists the post under the title “A Smattering of Selenium #90,” by Adam Goucher, dated Tuesday, June 19, 2012. Goucher opens with a note about the series’ schedule: “Eventually I’ll get back on the once-a-week schedule. But not today!” The Selenium archive also lists the entry among its 2012 posts. Read the original post and view the Selenium archive.

The headline can sound like a news update, but the post itself is a link roundup. Its value today is as a record of what one Selenium community roundup pointed readers toward in 2012—not as a current status report on Selenium or the linked tools.

The links, grouped by subject

Subject	What the roundup points to	How to read it now
Programming concepts	A piece about false assumptions programmers make about time, and a talk titled “Concurrency is not Parallelism (it’s better),” noted for its gophers.	These are general programming readings, not Selenium release information. The roundup supplies links and brief framing rather than independently verifying their arguments.
Netflix and “Cloud Monkeys”	A Wired item about an open-source “Cloud Monkeys” project. Goucher questions whether it had actually been open-sourced and remarks that he could not find it on Netflix’s GitHub account.	This is the author’s contemporaneous question in 2012, not a conclusion about the project’s present status.
Python and WebDriver	A Python introspection trick for identifying the current module or calling line; webdry, described as a Python, jQuery-inspired wrapper for DRY access to Selenium WebDriver.	Both appear as historical links. Check the linked source and current compatibility before using a technique or dependency in a modern project.
JavaScript with Selenium	A post about using jQuery through Selenium’s JavaScript executor instead of browser-native locator methods. Goucher says he is unsure he would choose that approach.	This is a link to an approach under discussion, not an endorsement or current best-practice recommendation.
Testing culture	A humorous “Record! Playback?” item and an argument titled “Checking as an enabler for testing,” which Goucher says may annoy readers who distinguish testing from checking.	The roundup flags a debate and a joke; it does not set out a testing methodology.
Unicode	Pragmatic Unicode, placed under the post’s “More reasons to go shopping!” line.	The link makes the book a clear reading recommendation in the roundup. The post does not verify current editions, formats, or retailer availability.

Why this is not a Selenium release update

A release announcement typically identifies a version, changes, compatibility notes, or upgrade guidance. This post does none of those things: it gathers outside reading across testing, programming, tooling, and Unicode. Its Selenium connection is the series and its WebDriver-related links, not a software release.

For historical research, cite the original Selenium post for what Goucher included and how he framed it. Follow each third-party link for that author’s own claims, and check its present-day availability separately. A link in a 2012 roundup is not evidence that a repository is maintained, a tool works with current Selenium, or a recommendation still applies.

ScreenshotNeo for capturing pages from a roundup

If your work with an old link roundup involves saving page screenshots for documentation or review, ScreenshotNeo is a website screenshot API and MCP server from Yorker Media. It is separate from the historical Selenium post and is included here as a current option for that practical task.

Or skip the browser setup

Make one GET request to capture a page as an image. See the ScreenshotNeo API documentation for request options.

curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webp

import requests
r = requests.get("https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot", params={"access_key": "YOUR_API_KEY", "url": "https://stripe.com"}, timeout=90)
open("shot.webp", "wb").write(r.content)

const q = new URLSearchParams({ access_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', url: 'https://stripe.com' });
const res = await fetch(`https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot?${q}`);

Cookie banners, newsletter popups, and chat widgets are removed before the shot; each cleanup step can be turned off.
Bot checks, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits are not billed. Response headers report the page verdict and billing status.
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Frequently asked questions

Who wrote “A Smattering of Selenium #90”?

The Selenium post credits Adam Goucher as its author.

When was it published?

Tuesday, June 19, 2012.

Does the roundup confirm that Netflix released Cloud Monkeys as open source?

No. Goucher questions the claim in the post; the roundup is not verification of the project’s status then or now.

Does this post explain how to use Selenium WebDriver?

No. It links to a Python wrapper and articles about Selenium techniques, but it is a brief roundup rather than a tutorial.