Is Selenium difficult to learn?

Do you want to start a cruising career in the IT sector but don’t know whether you will survive the Selenium battle?  Certainly, you will have a lot of questions storming in your head at the same time struggling to make a decision whether to go for it or not. Indeed, the situation you are dealing with is complex, as learning Selenium without a clear learning map and a good compass to navigate it is quite challenging.

Therefore, in this blog, we will be navigating you with some of the top reasons to learn selenium and establish a career in the field of automation testing. Also, we will guide you through the right learning resources to make your learning swift.

About Selenium

Selenium is a free (open source) electronic testing suite for web applications across different browsers and platforms. Nevertheless, it is similar to HP Quick Test Pro (QTP now UFT). However, Selenium focuses on automating web applications. Further, testing done using the Selenium tool is usually referred to as Selenium Testing.

It is not just a single tool but a suite of software, wherein each caters to different testing needs of an organization. It has four components –

• Firstly, Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
• Secondly, Selenium Remote Control (RC)
• Thirdly, WebDriver
• Lastly, Selenium Grid

What makes Selenium difficult to learn?

Is Selenium challenging? What makes it challenging? What are the expected hurdles? How can I overcome it? You all might have these questions running in your head. Well, no need to panic, we have got your back. All you have to do is stay with us until the end.

First things first, learning Selenium is quite difficult when you are learning it on your own. Doing this costs your time and effort. Further, the challenge gets bigger if you come from a non-IT background.

After that, there is a huge amount of Selenium and Java study materials (Blogs, books, online courses) available for beginners. Some of them are good and adequate for beginners. So, the next challenge for you is to select the good ones.

Subsequently, when you come at an advanced stage of learning, that is turning yourself from beginner to intermediate, your level of knowledge changes. However, there are some quality learning resources available for testers with intermediate knowledge of Selenium and Java.

Why should you learn Selenium?

The benefits of Selenium for Test Automation are immense which has made Selenium one of the most demanded and popular tools. Here we are explaining some of the top reasons to learn selenium. These reasons will help you in making a good career in automation. So, let get started.

Firstly, Selenium is an Open Source/ Free Tool

First things first, selenium enjoys the benefit of being an open-source tool. In other words, anyone can make access to this tool, that too free of cost. The tool is often employed by any type of organization to test their website or web application. In comparison to Selenium, other similar testing tools are either licensed tools or their functionality isn’t nearly as good as it. For example, Test Complete, IBM’s RFT, HP’s QTP, Ranorex Case. Selenium is the fair and square winner in terms of features in comparison with other testing tools.

Secondly, Selenium demands no special OS / Browser or Hardware

After that, the next great advantage Selenium offers is that the user does not require any special OS or browser or hardware to run the Selenium tool. That is to say, a user neither requires a system with 16GB RAM or high HDD nor a Mac OS or Windows OS or Linux OS. A user can test any website (which s/he wishes to test) on any browser, be it Firefox, or Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer, or Safari or even Opera. Therefore,  working with this tool is as easy to use.

Thirdly, Selenium supports multiple Programming Languages

Last but not the least, the most important factor which any programmer seeks is to get into the Automation Testing world that supports multiple programming languages. There is a vast availability of tools in the marketplace which requires the learners to be expertise in one particular programming language. The most common scripting languages incorporate Java C#, VBScript, etc. which is the requirement by various tools.

However, in the case of Selenium, even if its user is an expert in only one of these languages, which means that s/he can start their career with any other language. For example PHP or Pearl or Python or Java etc.  

How long does it take to learn Selenium?

Once you have understood Selenium, you may want to know the time period it actually takes to actually learn Selenium.

To be upfront, how long it takes depends on your study approach and when you start preparing for the exam. If your approach is right and you are moving in the right direction then you can learn Selenium in just 4-5 weeks, provided that you spend at least 2 hours a day. 

Further, the only other prerequisite is some basic HTML concepts are required before you actually start learning Selenium. The best part about this is that you can master these concepts easily without breaking much sweat. Doing this will not take much time of yours.

However, if you want that everything falls in place, then you better come up with a proper study plan and follow it with dedication. Remember discipline is the key here which will lead to your ultimate destination. The good news is, we will be helping you to make that study plan and also will share very useful blog posts links for the same, later in this article.

Strategic Roadmap to make Selenium Easy to Learn

Learning Selenium is not really tough, however, it requires a good disciple and strategic road map to learn it fast.

Therefore, in order to gain better understanding and familiarity, one should target four things: Java, Selenium Webdriver, TestNg and Frameworks to learn automation testing with Selenium. To make things much easier for you, we have presented a 4 weeks plan for you.

• 

First Week – Learn any Programing Language

In your first week, you should target any programming language in which you are comfortable with. We have shared study plans for Java. All you need to do is go for installing and setting up Eclipse and Java basics. Below are the topics you need to cover –

• Eclipse – Installation, and usage.
• Fundamentals of Java
  • Classes and Objects
  • Data Types in Java
  • Modifiers
  • Variables
  • Operators
  • Control Flow Statements
  • Conditional Statements
  • Loop Statements
  • Strings
  • Arrays, ArryaList
  • Methods
  • OOPS Concepts
  • Exception Handling in Java

Second Week – Learn Selenium Webdriver Commands

In your second week, go for all the Selenium Webdriver commands and do the practical implementation of their usage for demo/practice sites.

Third Week – Implementing TestNG Framework

In your third week, you can target implementing the TestNG framework in your Selenium Webdriver scripts.

TestNg is a unit testing framework used along with Programming language to control the execution flows, create test suites, the set priority of execution of test cases, report generation of test results. Topics to be covered include,

• Installation of TestNg in Eclipse
• Use of Annotations
• Create Test Suite & execute it
• Report generation

Fourth Week – Learn different Automation Framework

In your very last week, you should learn and develop different types of automation frameworks and their usage.

Automation frameworks are developed to increase the reusability of code and reduce maintenance costs and effort. Frameworks give us the liberty to integrate multiple tools and enhance our automation’s capability. We have specified the different types of frameworks below, make sure you go through every type. But try to develop the Page Object Model.

• First Step towards Automation Framework building
• Keyword driver Framework
• Modular FrameworkWhat makes Microsoft Azure difficult?
• Library Architecture Testing Framework
• Data-Driven Framework
• Hybrid Framework

Top Online Resources to Learn Selenium

Self-learning is often a tall task which most people fail at. In other words, people often find it difficult to learn things on their own and start looking for adequate and authentic resources online. So, in order to make things easy for you, we have rounded-up some of the highest-rated and most popular tutorials, videos, and websites to keep you on the right track to test automation.

Selenium Tutorials

First things first, there are various online tutorials present over the internet to study from. Vskills – India’s Largest Certification Body offers highest-rated and expert tutorials and a must-go-to source for testers. It provides free online tutorials with hundreds of practice tests. In order to turn you from a beginner to a Selenium automation pro, these sequential tutorials cover everything. No matter if you follow the order or not, these Selenium tutorials are a great page to bookmark and go back to if you get stuck.

Take Practice Tests

Practice tests or mock tests give you an accurate insight into where you stand. So, make sure you go through tests only after you are done with the whole syllabus. All the sample papers are devised in such a way that you meet the real exam environment. Further, performing practice or mock tests help you find your strengths and weaknesses. Start shaping your career with the Selenium practice test now!

Online Resources

In addition, Twitter is again a great online resource to indulge in. There is no denying the fact that many people have been in your shoes before and even the most skilled automation engineers had to start somewhere. The good news for you is that most of them are very active on Twitter and constantly share their tips, tricks, and advice when it comes to testing automation. So be sure to check them out and give them a follow.

Discussion Forums and Conferences

Last but not the least, there is no better way to learn from the experiences of people that actually use Selenium than by going to an in-person conference and joining discussion forums. Therefore, the Selenium Conference is the place to be if you want to make your way into test automation.

Expert’s Corner

To conclude, the demand for Selenium has taken a rise, thereby creating Selenium as the only perfect option for automated website testing.  Selenium has become the first choice of the automation testers as well as companies for automating the web-based application testing for both GUI as well as the functionality. 

IT professionals generally require a lesser time to grasp than a non-IT professional. However, if you have an interest in software testing, then acing the Selenium will be a cakewalk for you, despite the technical differences. Remember, nobody is born with knowledge. Knowledge gathers only with hard work. So, make sure you put every once of your hard work to pass this exam.

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