How to Learn Selenium WebDriver in 3 Days

or How to Learn Selenium WebDriver like a JEDI


I like Star Wars movies.

I still remember seeing the first episode, A New Hope, at the cinema, back in the 1980s.

Since then, I watched it and the following 5 episodes, produced by LucasFilm, many, many times.

The new ones, produced by Disney, are still good (much simpler though) especially Rogue One and The Last Jedi.

There is an interesting difference between the old Star Wars movies and the recent ones.

In The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker agrees to teach Rey just 3 lessons about the force. She needs to learn how to be a JEDI to be able to fight the imperial army and yes, Kylo Ren.

The lessons happen fast and only bits of knowledge and wisdom go from the teacher to the student. Not much skills as Luke is now a wise old man instead of a JEDI knight as before.

Just 3 lessons are enough for Rey to discover her potential and the mighty force. Having the force, she lifts a huge pile of rocks that stops her friends from running from the imperial army.

Unfortunately, as the episode title explains, the last JEDI disappears so in the future, there are no more JEDIs to teach about the force.

No more lessons about the force but probably the lessons are not needed any longer.

If Rey can learn the force in 3 lessons, maybe she can explain it to others in 1 lesson or maybe in just a few sentences.

The force is no longer accessible to a few but to all.
You just need to put your mind to it and there it is.


Now, why shouldnt we be able to do the same with Selenium WebDriver?

3 lessons.

It is not that hard.

The secret of the force is in how the study material is broken down per day.

Day 1
learn about html, xpath, css, browser dom, eclipse, java basics, unit testing.

Day 2
learn about object oriented notions like classes, objects, inheritance, composition, interfaces, polymorphism, generics, predicates, reflection, streams.

Day 3
learn the page object model, page factory, loadable component, slow loadable component and a few other design patterns.


And that's it, we are there, we can lift our own automation rocks.

This is totally doable if you are a Star Wars believer.

Everyone can do whatever they put their mind to.
Everything is easy to do and learn.
Everything is accessible to all of us, even the force.
The JEDI knights go away and who need them anyways?


Now, the old Star Wars episodes are a little different from the new ones.

In The Phantom Menace and Attack Of The Clones, the process of becoming a JEDI knight is explained in detail. You had to start your training at the JEDI Academy at a young age and complete it.

Then, a mentor would guide you through real life experiences until you are ready to pass the JEDI trials for becoming a knight.

No one became a JEDI in 3 lessons or 6 or 15.
No matter how skilled, talented or gifted.

Instead, the trainee would go through a long, difficult and intensive education with both teachers, peers and mentors.

This would totally work for Selenium WebDriver as well.

Selenium WebDriver learning is basically learning how to code which is best done with teachers, peers and mentors.

So Star Wars is a viable source of inspiration.

You just have to watch the proper episodes.

Watch The Last Jedi and believe that 3 lessons are sufficient.

Watch The Phantom Menace and understand that 6 months is a better time range.

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Alex Siminiuc