SYNICT'26: Software Testing Conference Happening With No Noise and Buzz

 

Tomorrow [11th Apr 2026], I'm attending a Software Testing conference in Bengaluru -- SYNICT'26.  

What compelled me to write this blog about this conference is, no buzz.  Yes, I do not see any buzz on social media or in the community from anyone about this conference.

I see the buzz and noise for the meetups that happen.  Yet, this conference is happening in silent.

The theme of the conference is, QA In the Era of AI.

When AI has buzz all around why the organizers of this conference chose to execute and deliver it in silence?  I'm yet to know this!

I see the committed practitioners in the speaker list.

All said, you and I know, a conference cannot happen if the organizing team is silence.  I see the team of 10 members who are behind this.  Among them, I interacted with Soham Majumder.  He seemed to be approachable, listening, and coordinated very well.  This has given me a good impression about his other team members as well.

Well, I will not be silent in the conference.  I will be exploring, unlearning, learning, catching-up, networking and assist engineers where all I can.

I'm exited to experience my first conference for the year 2026. 

How this conference is being executed has made me curious about it!

Between, I asked Soham what do "SYNICT" mean.  He said, it is -- synergy and connect.

Note this please -- I'm not paid to write.  I will not do it as well.  Such happening should be documented so that the future will know about it to say a testing conference happened with no noise and buzz.  I'm glad, I documented it.

SYNICT'26 Web Page

Selenium, Playwright and XPath

I was asked this question.  

What are the types of XPath in Selenium?

I'm sure most would not be shocked by this question  Instead, take it as the right question from an interviewer.

As I heard this question, I asked myself.,

What are the types of XPath in Playwright?

Isn't that fair to ask so?

In simple, the Selenium and Playwright do not have their types of XPath.  In fact, the XPath has nothing to do with Selenium and Playwright.

The XPath was created by W3C before the Selenium came to the world.

The XPath is built by W3C and used by the browser to traverse a XML document.  

By the way, XPath means XML Path.  The XPath is an expression or query to locate the node or element or attribute or what is of interest in the XML document.

The creator of Selenium used the XPath to locate an web element on a web page which is a HTML document -- a XML.

The Playwright also does the same.  It uses the XPath to traverse and locate a web element on a web page.

However, XPath has two ways to traverse and locate a node in XML or a web element in HTML page.  That is,

1. Absolute XPath
2. Relative XPath

These are the two types offered by W3C to traverse a XML document using XPath.

LLM and Its Training for Software Test Engineering

The LLMs are trained by the data and information on internet.  When the internet is filled with such contents which are incorrect, noise, and misleading, the LLM offers the same.

In my opinion, that question asked about the types of XPath in Selenium and Playwright is technically incorrect.  Looks like the question is picked from the web or from a LLM's response.

The LLMs are useful when it is trained on the well reasoned information and data, and when it is questioned in the better ways.

The people are accepting whatever LLMs respond and advocating that is right!  Beware!

Let us give the better data to LLMs for its training.  This is very much needed to the Software Testing and Test Engineering related training.  

Question the LLMs in your prompts and conversation.  It can assist better.  You should know when to say no for what it is responding.  The XPath and its types are independent of any web automation libraries and tools.  The web automation libraries and tools make use of the XPath to traverse and locate a web element, a property or a attribute of an element in web page.

The latest XPath version available is 3.1.  It is said, the popular browsers which we use supports natively for XPath 1.0 alone.  That is, the popular browsers do not natively support the latest version of XPath.   The XPath 1.0 became a recommendation in 1999.