Hands-On Selenium WebDriver with Java

Foreword

In 1999, Kent Beck wrote Extreme Programming Explained. This introduced the world to Extreme Programming (XP). For many people this was the way they first heard about Agile software development. Over the next 20 years, many of the ideas behind the book faded away, but there was one idea that stuck: we should be writing automated tests that verify our code is working as it should. XP expected these tests to be written before the app logic, leading to Test Driven Development (TDD).

Today, while strict TDD is seldom practiced, the idea of writing tests is prevalent (though not always popular!). Most companies now acknowledge the need for some kind of automated testing. Many of us actually write tests! Even “regular” QA roles now frequently require people to write code.

In 2004, Jason Huggins started Selenium at a software development consultancy called Thoughtworks, which specialized in Agile development. Employees were steeped in XP and were keen proponents of TDD. From the very beginning, Selenium has been closely associated with testing.

Back then, testing websites in a browser was relatively simple. These were the olden days, when there were dozens of browsers to choose between and JS was still spelled “JavaScript.” Sites were small, functionality limited, and the interactions the user could have via the browser were limited too: maybe just filling out a form and clicking a “submit” button. This is the world that Selenium was born into, and the APIs and functionality ...