History Of Selenium WebDriver

I have assumed that you have already read my past blog entry, Introduction to Selenium WebDriver and here on the quest to find out technical answer of question - what selenium is?

Before getting to the answer, I want you to go though the below info-graphics of history of Selenium WebDriver. 

History of Selenium

Now that you are aware of history, Can you answer what Selenium is?

Selenium is set of tools which includes :-

• Selenium IDE
• Selenium RC
• WebDriver
• Selenium Grid
  
  

So meaning of Selenium depends upon the context, citing the man himself - Simon Stewart here -

Unfortunately, the Selenium project uses a lot of jargon.

• Selenium Core is the heart of the original Selenium implementation, and is a set of Javascript scripts that control the browser. This is sometimes referred to as "Selenium" and sometimes as "Core".

• Selenium RC was the name given to the language bindings for Selenium Core, and is commonly, and confusingly, referred to as just "Selenium" or "RC". It has now been replaced by Selenium WebDriver, where RC's API is referred to as the "Selenium 1.x API"

• Selenium WebDriver fits in the same niche as RC did, and has subsumed the original 1.x bindings. It refers to both the language bindings and the implementations of the individual browser controlling code. This is commonly referred to as just "WebDriver" or sometimes as Selenium 2. Doubtless, this will be contracted to "Selenium" over time.

The astute reader will have noticed that "Selenium" is used in a fairly general sense. Fortunately, context normally makes it clear which particular Selenium people are referring to.

For Reference : Selenium RC architecture

Selenium RC architecture

    On 29th July of 2016, Selenium Committee announced Selenium 3.0 beta  and from now onward Selenium is not going to support Selenium Remote Control[RC] API or Selenium 1.0 API. This means, once Selenium 3 is publicly released you can say Selenium is Selenium 3.0 which is enhanced version of WebDriver and you no longer need to know what Selenium core is or what RC is. You just need to know WebDriver implementation of Selenium.

This is all for now.

Cheers!!

PS:-

All images used in infographics are taken from Google. Selenium RC architecture diagram is taken from official Selenium website.

Information source for infographics :-

1. Paul Hammant post on 10th anniversary of Selenium.
2. Wikipedia-Selenium Page.
3. The Architecture of Open Source Application - Selenium WebDriver by Simon Stewart.
4. Official Selenium Website