Learn Java as a language not as something that drives selenium

There are lot of manual testers who wants to get automation projects.

But, do you learn the language even after getting an automation project or just use existing framework to add new cases by simple copy-paste.

I once interviewed a candidate who was very confident in selenium.

Me: So, you how much experience you have in selenium and java

Candidate: 4 years

Me: So, have you ever used java out of selenium

Candidate: (little confused) I am selenium automation tester, so never used it out of selenium

Me: Can you write a program to test if a given string is a valid IP address

Candidate: (after some thinking) Sorry, i have never used regular expressions in java

Me: Can you think of any other approach

Candidate: may be, i can start reading the string from left to right and check that there are no alphabets and only numbers and dot

Me: So, how would you check that there are 4 segments and each segment have value 0-255

Candidate: This problem is too difficult for me

Me: Ok, given two strings can you write a program to check if string 1 is substring of string 2

Candidate: (after some thinking) We always match exact strings, we never had any requirement to match partial string.

Me: So, what types of asserts you put in selenium

Candidate: mostly get values from webpage and match with database

Me: So, suppose there is a date field in database in format 31-12-2016 and it is displayed on website as 31st Dec,2016 - how would you check this.

Candidate: i would check first 2 characters and match only 31

Me: and what if 'dd' part of date is single digit like 9-12-2016

Candidate: i would match the string reading from left to right till first non-digit character appears

Me: ok, can you write a code for this ie read string from left to right and print the substring till first non-digit character appears.

Candidate: (after trying few things for sometime) Sorry , i am not able to code.

Friends, if you use selenium with java, then at-least learn basic string operations, array operation, loops, dictionaries.

You might not be using them in current work due to existing framework and nature of project, but surely it shows that you lack coding skills.