Introduction to Selenium WebDriver

When one starts with new technology, there are numerous questions clouds in a mind. Selenium is not an exception. As a beginner or newbie, you might have following questions which I had some months ago. So I have created a list of all those questions. I will try to answer those questions as per my knowledge and understanding.

• What is selenium?  

• Why we need Selenium?

• What are advantages of selenium over other tools?

• Is Selenium WebDriver best tool available out there for automation?

• Why should one learn Selenium WebDriver?

• How to learn Selenium WebDriver?

• Where can I find free online step by step tutorial to learn Selenium?

• How can I enhance my selenium skills?

Answers to most of these questions mentioned above are related to each other. Let’s go one by one.

What is Selenium?

          As per official Selenium website, Selenium automates browsers. Citing the entire introductory a paragraph from the source:

Selenium automates browsers. That's it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that. Boring web-based administration tasks can (and should!) also be automated as well.

Simon Stewart, creator of WebDriver has put it down very nicely in a ‘The Architecture of Open Source Applications - Selenium WebDriver’. Citing the entire introductory a paragraph from the source:

Selenium is a browser automation tool, commonly used for writing end-to-end tests of web applications. A browser automation tool does exactly what you would expect: automate the control of a browser so that repetitive tasks can be automated.

Both sources have explained selenium in layman term, you get the idea now what Selenium is. If you are looking for the technical answer, please check this post.

Why we need Selenium WebDriver?

         If someone asks you question why we need Selenium, what would be the answer? Answer is very simple because we need to automate the Browser due to following reasons:-

1. Doing Regression Testing frequently takes a lot of human efforts and time.
2. Manual Testing is prone to error.

       Thus automation is reliable, repeatable way than we could do with people. It may save time and/or save money, although if it is done in the wrong way or in the wrong circumstances, it may require even more time and more money than using people.

 

What are advantages of selenium over other tools?

1. Selenium WebDriver is part of W3C’s Web Testing Activity Statement. WebDriver is a standard which means it is not going anywhere which may be the case for vendor specific tool.
2. No upfront cost, free to download.
3. Community-based but great support.
4. A lot of free resources available for learning Selenium WebDriver.
5. Option to choose a programming language.

Is Selenium WebDriver best tool available out there for automation?

          If someone tells you that any specific tool or technology is best, never trust them. It would be always context driven. What may be best in one context can be bad in another context. 

         Selenium is no exception either. The truth is newbie or beginner cannot write great maintainable robust code at first, of course, they can follow the learn-practice-improve cycle and Selenium WebDriver needs expertise in a programming language. Apart from that like many other commercial tools, there is no great reporting system in Selenium WebDriver. You can use third party library like ExtentReport or Allure Report to overcome that but still. Selenium Webdriver only works for browser-based testing and NOT FOR DESKTOP BASED TESTING.

Why should one learn Selenium WebDriver?

    Read all the advantages of Selenium WebDriver in above section, those are enough reasons to learn the Selenium WebDriver. Apart from that plenty of decent paying job available and a trend is going up.

Selenium and WebDriver Job Trends

How to learn Selenium WebDriver?

        Like any other technology/programming language, you have to try it for yourself. Just reading would never take you to anywhere. You actually would have to download the IDE and start coding and using Selenium WebDriver.

Where can I find free online step by step tutorial to learn Selenium WebDriver?

         There are plenty of good free tutorials available online for Selenium WebDriver. You just need to google it out. You can find related tutorial on this blog as well but I would suggest following more than one blog to broaden your knowledge and skills.

How can I enhance my selenium skills?

          If you already good at Selenium WebDriver and you think your learning curve is pretty stagnant now, then please check this post.

This is all for now.

Cheers!!