Software testing is a crucial step in the development and execution of a successful software product. To ensure that a piece of software does exactly what it’s intended to do, it must be thoroughly tested before being delivered to its users.
Most of the software currently on-the-market has undergone thorough testing, yet the occasional glitch still pops up on a mobile interface. To ensure your software program runs seamlessly, you should employ superior testing techniques such as Selenium software testing.
In this age of rapid technological advancement where even the most minute systems are dependent on intricate software design, it’s important to develop and launch software without defect. Testing automation has gained recent popularity in the software testing industry due to its various advantages. Undecided on the method of software testing you’d like to utilize in your software development? Here are the benefits of Selenium Software Testing, specifically.
What is Selenium?
Selenium ranks among the most popular automation testing used by testers around the globe. Test engineers prefer selenium over other testing tools because of its user-friendliness and widespread availability.
Introducing Selenium software testing has simplified the basic responsibilities of the average software tester. The streamlining effect of Selenium is a major reason why this mode of software testing has quickly become a favorite among many automation testers.
This free source automation testing tool is, unfortunately, only used to test web applications. However, there are several testing tools like Tricentis, Watir, Rational Functional Tester (RFT), and unified functional tester (UFT) that are solely dedicated to testing desktop and mobile software applications.
In 2004, testing engineer Jason Huggins developed the first Selenium testing tool while working as an engineer at ThoughtWorks. Huggins’s work at ThoughtWorks was primarily based on testing web applications. He soon realized that the repetition of the same test cases was making manual testing more inefficient.
In response, Huggins created his first JavaScript program that was able to control and manipulate web browsers. This program was later named “Javascripttestrunner automatically”. The testing engineer later renamed the program to Selenium Core after making the program open source. The name Selenium was settled on by Huggins and his team over email.
As this team of software testing engineers was developing the first Selenium, the most popular testing tool on-the-market was called Mercury Interactive. Since Mercury is cured with Selenium, Huggins decided to keep the name, as his program was designed to be a better version of the Mercury Interactive.
Selenium Tool Suite
Technically-speaking, it makes perfect sense to refer to Selenium as a suite since it combines four major components that employ different strategies in automation testing. Testers choose the components depending on the needs and requirements of the web application being tested.
Selenium Grid
Selenium Grid is a Hub and Node Architecture-based tool that allows you to run multiple parallel test sessions on different web browsers. Hub regulates scripts of Selenium that are executed on different browsers, along with any programming language that can be used to write the test scripts processing on separate nodes.
In the early phases of software development innovation, RC was used in conjunction with a Selenium Grid to run several evaluations on remote devices. Recently, users have reported WebDriver to be more effective. As a result, Grid has been made to use both on RC and WebDriver.
Selenium IDE
This is a software program used for editing, recording, replaying, and debugging functional tests. On the Chrome web browser, testing engineers implement IDE in the form of an extension and add-on on the Firefox. With the IDE plugin, tests can be recorded and exported in several programming languages such as PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, and Java.
Selenium WebDriver
Selenium WebDriver is an advanced version of Selenium RC that administers commands through the API of a client. In simpler terms, WebDriver is a driver designed specifically for browsers, which broadens access to various browsers that have different drivers.
Selenium Client API
Selenium Client API is a new tool in the Selenium collection that can be used to write test scripts using several programming languages. Instead of working with Selenese, testers can utilize Selenium Client API that’s available for Ruby, JavaScript, Java, and Python. Using predefined commands and functions, these test scripts interact with Selenium to improve the software testing process overall.
Benefits of Selenium
Now that you’re familiarized with the basics of Selenium, it’s important to investigate what makes Selenium stand out from the myriad of web application testers available on-the-market.
Flexibility in the programming language
Considering how challenging and time-consuming learning a new programming language can be, some testing engineers won’t have enough allotted time to tackle the process of learning a new language for the sole purpose of running software tests.
Most testers prefer using a tool whose framework allows the use of multiple programming languages. With Selenium, web developers don’t have to worry about the choice of programming language, since this testing program is built with extensive language support.
Open-source programming
A huge chunk of selenium’s popularity can be attributed to its launch as an open-source tool. Being open-source makes it widely available for any programmer, tester, or web developer with its easy-to-use features The code can be modified to enhance the testing tool’s functionality. Granting users the freedom to modify the program at-will, Selenium has grown to be one of the most-preferred web automation testing tools available.
The open-source community
The Selenium community is comprised of testing enthusiasts and software professionals who are deeply proud of the testing tool they’ve created. The open-source community is always willing to adapt and is quick to improve the existing code, making Selenium a constantly-evolving and competitive testing tool on-the-market.
