Go to the profile of Jessy Grace
Jessy Grace

Benefits of learning Selenium

Advantages of Learning Selenium

This article is written by focusing on those who has no idea about Selenium. This is basically a beginner’s guide.

Let’s get started.

What is Selenium?

Selenium Testing is one popular automation testing tool that is used to automate the browsers as well as web applications. Using Selenium, one can test the web applications with multiple browsers and thus ensure the quality of web applications.

Selenium is an open source project which allows the developer and testers to develop the functional tests that drives the browser. It also records workflows and helps the developers in preventing future regression of code.

Selenium can work on any browser which supports JavaScript as it has been built using JavaScript.

What is Automation Testing?

Investing huge amount of time and money on large testing teams to make sure the application works as per the requirement is now not possible. But the developers want to ensure their code works as it is expected to work. To do so, the developers are currently using a multitude of testing frameworks that doesn’t demand much of their time. Selenium is one of the most popular automation testing frameworks that are currently in use all around the globe.

What is Selenium IDE?

Selenium IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is a Firefox add-on that helps in using the original Selenium Core without copying Selenium Core onto the server.

Selenium IDE was developed using JavaScript. This enables it to interact with DOM (Document Object Model) by using the native JavaScript calls.

Selenium IDE allows the developers and testers to record the actions they perform as they follow the workflow that needs to be tested.

Selenium WebDriver

There are certain limitations of Selenium 1 due to which WebDriver came into use. Here are some of the reasons why testers and developers are using WebDrivers.

  • Better control is achieved on the browser and browser-specific implementations can be implemented.
  • The developer can adhere to the object-oriented programming fundamentals and enjoy better programming experience.

What is WebDriver?

WebDriver is nothing but a web automation framework which will allow you to execute the tests against any browser (not just Firefox).

WebDriver lets the tester and developer use any programming language to create the test scripts which is not possible by using Selenium IDE.

The Programming Languages that are supported by WebDriver are

  • Java
  • .Net
  • Ruby
  • Python
  • PHP
  • Perl

However, you need not know all of these programming languages. You just need to know one of them.

Difference between Selenium 1 and Selenium 2

Let us look at the features of Selenium 1 and Selenium 2 individually that clearly enables you to make out the difference.

Selenium 1

  • It supports only real browsers. It does not support HTML Unit. It needs graphical desktop environment.
  • It follows the approach that is based on JavaScript.
  • In Selenium 1, you need a proxy application to control the browser while performing unit tests.
  • It is limited by the JavaScript security model of the browser.
  • It makes use of complex API.
  • It has API methods for specific HTML elements.

Selenium 2

  • Selenium 2 was created from the WebDriver Project and Selenium 1.
  • The WebDriver controls the browser directly. There is no need of using Selenium RC, which means you do not require a proxy application to control the browser.
  • Selenium Grid and Selenium RC of Selenium 1 have been merged into the Selenium Server.
  • Selenium 2 supports all sorts of browsers, including mobile browsers of Android and iPhone like earlier said.

Why should you learn Selenium over other testing tools?

The recognition of Selenium has sky rocketed in the current years and the internet has seen beginning of quite a lot of Selenium Training Video Tutorials and Selenium WebDriver online training courses. But if you are wondering why you should attend Selenium Training over other testing courses, here are some of the reasons responsible for its reliability.

Selenium is an open source testing tool

Selenium has the advantage of being open source. The users can share, extend and modify code that is available. This saves a lot of time and effort of the programmers which directly improve their productivity.

Platform Portability

The programmers can write code without having to worry about the platform on which the code has to run. The Selenium automation testing gives the programmer the freedom to write code on any platform as it has the ability to run on different platforms as well as browsers.

Remote Control

Selenium has the special feature of remote control which lets the testers to create and test the infrastructure that is spread across various locations very easily.

Flexibility

Most of the software programmers prefer keeping the testing within the program. By making use of Selenium, all the tests can be regrouped and refactored as per the requirements. This avoids duplication of code and allows the programmer to make quick changes to the code. Test can be efficiently managed using Selenium.

Summary:

There is one common question that is often asked by people planning to attend Selenium Training Online or through tradition classes and it goes like this. “I have no awareness concerning Java. Can I still go to Selenium tutorials?” The answer is yes. But there is a catch. Learning Selenium WebDriver without knowing about Java is not an easy task and neither it is difficult. It is challenging. You will be a better Selenium Tester if you have prior Java knowledge or experience. The Selenium WebDriver interview questions also become a lot easier for people who know Java than those who have no idea about it.

For more info visit: http://itelearn.com/course/selenium-training-video-tutorials/