Mink 1.1: Ode to OpenSource by Everzet

Aug 10, 2011 − Mink 1.1 is here to om nom nom your web applications. Thanks to OpenSource

Hi there.
We've been in OSS business for quite some time now. And now you might want to ask how OpenSource works for KNP Labs.

Open-Source, KNP and me

The case is, I've created Behat and Mink as part of my vision of web applications development process. And KNP Labs hired me because this company shares the same ideas and wants to move into a better future where any web app is QA by definition and every client is happy by nature.
But we can't do it alone. No one can.
Well, except Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Batman.

So, we've OpenSourced parts of our vision. It's our application platform. We use it everyday in our own projects and we encourage you all to use it in your projects too. Because that's how we think successful development process should be, because that's what we believe in. That's it. Our main development tools are free to use, explore and modify.

But why?

Is it altruism??? Au contraire !
What do we get for sharing our tools? The nicest PR on github I've seen so far. Yes, now we have the ability to run all our internal projects functional tests against JS-enabled headless browser. With no effort − well, almost :-)

That's how it works: we give you our tool with enough documentation and passion and you contribute back with issues, pull requests and "merci". There's no single company or developer, that can make our entire development life easier enough for everyone. We all can, together!

We wouldn't have got the time at KNP to write a ZombieDriver to support Zombie.js − and you probably would not have got the time to write Behat yourself.
But now you and us have both. Why? Because people share! Not with clients or money, but with knowledge.

A Zombie.js Driver in Mink

So, now we have MinkZombieDriver, that adds awesome Zombie.js browser support to Mink. And all thanks to one contributor - Pascal Cremer. One developer, that made us one step closer to a better future :-)

Mink docs have been been updated accordingly. Same as BehatBundle and MinkBundle. Yes, just update your PEAR's, PHAR's or submovules and you're ready to go with headless JS testing with Mink.

Feel free to tweet thanks to Pascal. And help us make all our lives more fun! By contributing to OpenSource...

Konstantin aka Everzet