Crack the Code – A Fun Way to Understand Coding
minutes read
I am delighted to share my experience of being a part of the Crack the Code training sessions at Dazeworks. Our mentor and Salesforce MVP Deepak Anand carried out the training with an excellent plan. A special thanks to Salesforce.com and Force.com MVP Shivanath Devinarayanan for giving me a wonderful opportunity to work in the Salesforce platform. The training session has gone a long way in building my confidence in the platform and I hope Dazeworks will be a great career step for me.
Deepak had prepared all the training modules with perfect focus on key criteria such as training curriculum, time and area of evaluation.
Curriculum for ‘Crack the Code’:
The training sessions were focused on six basic areas that any coding and Salesforce enthusiast needs to be proficient in.
- Coding Best Practices
Our training program started with Coding Best Practices (indentation, vertical alignment, horizontal alignment, whitespace and tabs). For example, by using four spaces of tab stops, we indent the code based on parent-child relationship.
- Web Technologies
The next module was web technologies. We got a basic understanding about commonly used technologies and terms such as HTTP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript. We were introduced to the concepts of GET method and POST method.
HTML: HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language, as is commonly known is the language with which every webpage is written. Through our sessions, we learned about the basics of HTML including its syntax and common terminologies.
CSS: Next, we moved on to what makes a webpage look ‘pretty’! This is where CSS comes into play. We got a clear overview of CSS including the three types of selectors in it such as the Tag selector, Id selector and Class selector.
JavaScript: This section dealt with JavaScript variables, functions, data types and operators (String, Integer, Boolean) as well as operator precedence (Basic Operators, Logical Operators, Conditional Operators).
- jQuery and Cloud Computing Concepts
Other modules included jQuery and concepts in cloud computing like Saas,Paas,Iaas,MBaas etc. and key differentiating factors between traditional and cloud computing.
- Apex & Visualforce
We further moved on to Salesforce specific technologies such as Apex and Visualforce.
Apex: Apex is an in-house technology of Salesforce.com similar to java programming that helps us write our own custom logic. The concept of Collections is critical in Apex and includes List, Set and Map. Understanding the business logic for writing the Apex code with the help of collections, writing the methods and getting notations – all these are included in Apex and form a strong foundation for any budding Salesforce developer. The best and most fun way to understand the basic functionality of Apex in Salesforce is through Trailhead. It comes with the added incentive of earning and showing off our Trailhead badges!
Visualforce pages: Again, the easiest way to understand Visualforce is by winning more of those Trailhead badges! Every year, Salesforce releases Apex components that provide actions in the page.
For example, <apex:pageBlockTable><apex:pageBlockTable/> and normal <table><table/>
<apex:pageBlockTable> It represents the Table which looks like a standard Salesforce table. That means the look and feel is similar to Salesforce table and enables access to the standard functionality. But <table> represents our own customized design for which we can use Bootstrap Lightning Design.
- Post-Training Projects
No training is deemed complete without assignments. Our Crack the Code training sessions were also followed by something similar. We have done a total six projects which have reinforced what we learnt and understood during these sessions.
- Bootstrap Resume
- Calculator
- Form validations (using JS)
- Tic Tac Toe
- Dot Game
- Racing club (using jQuery)
All these training modules have helped us in our understanding of coding and of the Salesforce platform. The next task of course is to put all the learning into practice. This is where the real fun begins and I definitely look forward to that under the guidance of seasoned Salesforce experts at Dazeworks.