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headless browser is not the solution because ui may be very brittle. I always have to update my scrappers as people tend to change ui time to time.

Headless browser is only solution if upstream website don't change their ui and is very stable.



Sure, I doubt anyone who in the history of programming has even fired up a headless browser and thought "whew, I'm glad that work is finished, never to be touched again!"

But if it's a choice between _me_ (a) remembering every 3 months (b) then opening Chrome, authenticating, recalling the 18 clicks to get to the right settings screen, copy-pasting the 3 text fields, hitting submit, then logging out, or puppeteer doing that, there's absolutely no contest which of those is the better use of the company's series-A

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Separately, I'm not sure where this falls on the HN etiquette guide, but the word is "scraper", because a "scrapper" is someone who collects and recycles metal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapper

It's just a pet peeve of mine




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