Selenium is a portable software testing framework for web applications. Selenium provides a record/playback tool for authoring tests without learning a test scripting language (Selenium IDE). It also provides a test domain-specific language (Selenese) to write tests in a number of popular programming languages including Java, C#, Groovy, Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby. Selenium deploys on Windows, Linux and Macintosh platforms. The name Selenium comes from a joke made by its developer Jason Higgins in an email, mocking a competitor named Mercury, saying that you can cure mercury poisoning by taking selenium supplements. The others that received the email took the name and ran with it. Written in Java and released on October 9, 2015, Selenium is open-source software licensed under Apache License 2.0. The components of Selenium include Selenium IDE, Selenium client API, Selenium Remote Control, Selenium WebDriver and Selenium Grid.
Importance of Selenium in industry
Selenium is probably the best option for automated testing of the website today. It is becoming increasingly popular and it is the first choice of automation testers as well as organizations for automating the testing of Web-based applications for both the GUI as well as the functionality. Selenium can also be used as a testing tool for JavaScript. Selenium has become so popular over time that all major investment banks use it. Companies like Smartbear, ThoughtWorks, Google, Mozilla, LinkedIn, MchGrowHill Education, Gett, Algosec, Wixe, eBay, Accenture, Naukri.com, Monster.com, Microsoft, Siemens Corp., use Selenium. Apart from them, leading credit card companies of UK and USA, leading new based websites of UK also use Selenium.
Selenium advanced for students
You’ll find that Selenium is highly flexible. There are many ways you can add functionality to both Selenium test scripts and Selenium’s framework to customize your test automation. This is perhaps Selenium’s greatest strength when compared with other automation tools. Selenium being an Open source project has an innate capability to mold and grow in epic proportions. With the license, cost curtailed as compared to the proprietary tools and strength of the Open source community pushing for more and more advancement we have seen huge growth in Selenium from 1.0 to Webdriver 2.0. With so many features under the belt, it will definitely garner more reach and acceptance across the industry as it gets mature over a period of time. Before jumping into Selenium, the user should be aware of basic Java concepts and HTML concepts which will help the Selenium developer to create effective scripts. Assuming that student have knowledge in the basics of Selenium, the advanced course of Selenium will cover the concepts of Logging in Selenium, Selenium Scripting Tips, and Tricks, and Automation Testing Using Cucumber and Selenium, among others