03-01, 14:00–14:30 (UTC), Gather Town
No matter what type of developer you are, you have faced the problem of "Works on my machine".
How many things do you have to guide in setting up a machine to run a robot?
RCC is a single cross-platform executable to manage all this... and significantly more.
"If your README starts with 'pip install abc', then this talk is for you."
Ask yourself:
Does the README in your project root actually cover getting a new developer up and running?
How often have you heard: "Works on my machine"?
How long does it take for you to get your robot running on another machine?
How sure are you that the last run of the robot did not change something?
When developing with RobotFramework, you cannot avoid these common topics, just like in any software development. Usually, these tend to get brushed under the rug as "this is only a one-time setup", but in the real world, it is not the case. You will need to switch between projects requiring different Python versions, a specific Firefox version, etc. ...and that is the simplest case.
Getting a repeatable, movable, clean environment for your robot execution is a big thing. In RPA, this is crucial, but this should also be the base mindset in test automation. No matter the case you want to be sure that when you run the same thing repeatedly, your foundation does not change.
RCC toolchain is not just for RPA; it is more than Python or RobotFramework, basically "it is not just for X". RCC enables you to define, package, and isolate your robot project and the dependencies your robot needs. But RCC does a LOT more than that.
Let's see how many things I can cover in this talk, but the hook is:
"If your README starts with 'pip install abc', then this talk is for you."
Engineering Director at Robocorp responsible for development tools.
I started my developer journey with Symbian and loved it.
In the almost 20 years since then have touched a bunch of languages and tech. stacks along the way C, C++, Qt, Java, .NET, Silverlight, Ember.js, most databases, etc.
I would like my title to be just "Software Janitor" as that has somewhat been my role through the years.