Ravi S. Iyer: Software Development

Last updated on 12th July 2025 I am trying to quickly get an idea of Playwright which seems to be a very useful automated testing tool for web apps. An interesting aspect about Playwright is the automated test code generator - part of  Playwright Inspector - that Playwright has (like a macro recorder but smarter). So for straightforward tests, one may be able to easily generate test code for various test cases and thus have a test suite without doing any direct coding oneself (and have ability to tweak that test code with direct coding for more intricate tests). Playwright is free and seems to be backed by Microsoft. I think it is open source but I have not checked that. What is Playwright? (🎭 Playwright introduction tutorial, features & demo), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGr5rz8WGCE , around 12 mins., pub. Jun 2021. To skip install stuff jump to: https://youtu.be/wGr5rz8WGCE?t=236 . Covers generating test code using Playwright Inspector (Like macro recorder but smarter I...

Google Firebase Studio In 23 Minutes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd6F5wHIysM , around 22 mins, published May 2025. It shows development of a single page web app using AI (some pokemon or something clone which I did not understand). The author uses vibe coding mostly without getting into code changes herself with one or two exceptions. The tech stack of the app includes NextJS, React and Firebase. The interesting feature of Firebase studio as compared to what I did when I developed the Timestamp Tracker using  ChatGPT and Gemini is that the former has a VSCode based editor integrated with Gemini. The app development did run into some issues which is similar to my experience with Timestamp Tracker development. At some point, the author changed the model to what seems to be a paid one. Firebase studio has an interesting feature of being able to modify the screen directly and ask Gemini to generate the code for it.  Firebase studio also provides an integrated publish (for we...

Last updated on 23 Aug 2025 This post is a continuation of:  Notes on learning stage of developing my own React Native education app using Expo Framework - Part 1 . Main tutorial used for learning: Simon Grimm: Build Your Own MASTERCLASS clone in React Native, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO3D8lNs10c , 4 hrs. 42 mins, Mar. 2025. Quick-Info Steps for reliable and reproducible build from working React Native and Expo project source files Use working package.json and package-lock.json in the build. This will ensure that same package versions are used in current build as in working version. Delete node_modules, .expo and android directories, if present. Run: npm ci Run: npx expo prebuild --clean Run: npx expo run:android  The above should give a successful build with APK as in previous successful build with working version of project source files. If step 5 fails and the reason seems to be that current Gradle and AGP (Android Gradle Plugin) versions used by step 5 are not work...