TL; DR;
Getting to know Linda Langerová, cosplay artist and versatile programmer who likes graphics and the variability of the Salesforce ecosystem.
Intro
Hi, my name is Linda,
I’m honoured to share part of my story! I have loved computers and technology since my childhood. I was also always keen on creating. Crafting things, cooking food, sewing plushies and cosplay, painting and much more. When my daddy first introduced me to programming (in Baltie 😊) when I was about 12 and told me that this way I can make my own computer programs and games I was super excited. Since then, I dreamt about being part of the game industry, got interested in AR and VR and got familiar with Unity and 3D modelling programs.
Over the years and after several game projects, I found this was not the route I wanted to follow and went looking for different specialisations in IT that would suit me. From my graphics-person perspective, I was always more a front-end person. I like my job to be varied though, so after some time being a full-stack developer in Javascript/.NET I was happy to have found Salesforce which combines everything and much more. For about 2,5 years now I have worked at Enehano Solutions as a Salesforce developer.
Books
Which “professional” books have you read that you liked or would recommend others to read. Great if they are Salesforce (Developer) related but they don’t necessarily have to be.
I am not much of a book person, as I usually invest my free time rather into something creative than to just sit down and read. Moreover, the IT field develops so quickly. I once saw a visualisation that analysed this kind of progress and the result was that everything older than 5 years is extremely outdated and with the speed of my reading it would not be very effective way of learning for me (even if I’d buy brand new books) 😀
Courses & Events
Did you follow any online (or in person) courses? Are there any that you would recommend? Do you participate in Meetups or organised User Groups?
I found it particularly useful to learn from focusonforce.com when it came to certifications – paid guides that prepare you for them. It was more useful than just following Trailheads. I also used to visit the local user group meetups before covid, but to be honest, I haven’t seen it happening recently. But when I see there is some local Salesforce-related event (e. g. Czech Dreamin’ not too long ago), I’m in.
Blogs
Give a shout out to any (Salesforce) Blogs that you follow are are fan of. You don’t need to be a regular reader, or maybe even just one post that may have got your attention.
I am afraid I cannot give specific blog names, I usually get redirected there from other sites.
Socials
Do you use Social Media for your work or personal development? Which ones, how and why? Any creators that you would recommend others follow/check out?
I like to have everything in one place, so my only social media – work and personal together – are Facebook and LinkedIn. Because I have many friends in IT related jobs, it happens often that some of them share some interesting articles there.
And when it comes to some recommendations… From the time I started learning JavaScript, I loved this channel on Youtube – Fun fun functions – it’s funny, its videos are short and full of knowledge and it’s really catchy. MPJ (the author of this channel and all the videos) made such an impression, that I visualised his character as the main boss in my bachelor thesis (which was a logical game that visualised different programming languages). I definitely recommend checking it out for JS tips.
Forums and Discussion Channels
Where do you look for help or answers to problems you can’t solve yourself? Do you spend time answering other peoples’ questions? Where?
Well, this will be a very original answer – Google. Asking Google is always a good start, but of course, it very often leads me to sites like Stack Overflow etc. Sometimes when I have a bit of time I just go through the recent questions that look like something I would know and answer them. But I am more likely to answer questions that I found while looking for a solution for my problem once i found an answer.
I mustn’t forget to mention, that if all the internet fails to answer my question, there is always a possibility to ask my colleagues 😊
GitHub
Do you use GitHub as a social platform? Or maybe follow some open-source repos that are interesting and relevant?
Not as a social platform, but more like a backup for my personal projects – it’s always good to keep my work in one place in the cloud where it could possibly help other people. GitHub is more like music to me – I don’t have a favourite band, thus I don’t follow any specific repo, but It is not rare to find something interesting for my ear and for my actual coding project.
IDE and Extensions
What’s your setup? Specifically when doing Salesforce Development work. Any features or extensions you would recommend.
I belong to team VS Code with all the SF plugins, Git Graph for nice repo visualisation, Bash terminal to work with git, Postman for REST api calls, SOAP UI for SOAP. Using Google Chrome browser with Salesforce inspector. I believe there is a lot I forgot to mention, but these I see as a basic setup.
Other Tools
Any other software that you can’t do without?
MS Teams, Outlook and other communication stuff. I also use standard notepad to make small notes from meetings. Greenshot is a nice software for making printscreens. When I need to make a quick guide to something that will be in a form of gif, I use this super simple but useful program ScreenToGif.
Anything Else
Anything else you wanna add that doesn’t fit above? What else do you do or use to be a good Salesforce Developer?
Motivation, good team and suitable work environment (with plants and a second monitor :D) 😊 I just finished my home office to be the one I always dreamt of, and I can say that it raised my productivity significantly. But that’s something that can be applied for almost all kinds of jobs, not only the software development.
I think it’s important to follow release notes to know what’s new. I love how the Salesforce ecosystem is compact so you can get most information in one place. Beside that, I think the best way to learn is working on smaller projects – or maybe more like in smaller teams, so you can do “everything” from coding, architecture, solving various business cases and studying all the Salesforce nooks and crannies and never get stuck in a rut.
I will mention one more thing: shortcuts. Learn as many shortcuts to simplify your work as possible. And you can learn some pretty useful shortcuts for Windows itself (I was adult-years old when I found this functionality) like Win + V (opens your clipboard history so you don’t have to copy-paste just one thing at a time) or Win + . (opens the Windows emoticons to insert them anywhere 🤩).
Plug Yourself
Would you like to share your profiles and websites? Any public repos or project/work that you wanna share?
My personal repos are mostly private, but as a creator, I can share this one: https://www.facebook.com/Linartandcosplay/ it’s not work related at all, but some of my projects contain quite a bunch of electronics (usually based on Arduino), so probably someone might be interested 😊
Tabs of Spaces
For a bit of light entertainment, my favourite “controversial” topic. What’s your preference? Do you care? I love to pretend to care more than I do, though I am genuinely looking for someone to convince me my choice is wrong.
Team TABS. I don’t know, it feels much better. With Tabs, you don’t have to ask anything. With spaces, you need to care for “how many”.