Behind The Scenes: Coding with Apex

I wanted to take you into my home office today and share with you my setup, what I use for coding, what goes into a normal day in the life of a coder. It’s not all that glamorous, but it’s challenging, rewarding and fun.

I’m a Salesforce Technical Architect, which means I strategically plan custom technical projects that help provide business value that will positively impact a businesses bottom line, and I get my hands dirty actually doing the coding work. I work on the Salesforce platform, best CRM there is and the coding language I mainly use is Apex, but I also use Javascript, HTML, CSS and do integration work as well with SOAP and REST APIs.

Computer Setup

For my computer setup I work on a Mac. I have a 15-inch MacBook Pro. I started out with a PC in my early coding days, but turned Mac early on… and once you turn Mac you never go back. I have two other I think 19” and 21” monitors that I connect to my laptop to provide me with 3 screens that I can separate my windows on, which helps me to multi-task easier.

Software Setup

The software is a little more interesting.

• I mainly use Visual Studio Code for my projects. Visual Studio Code (https://code.visualstudio.com/) easily integrates with Salesforce using a Salesforce Extension Pack (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=salesforce.salesforcedx-vscode). These extension packs help to provide tool tips and auto-complete when I’m coding to save some time. Visual Studio Code is also great for many other languages as it will provide the color coding and helpful formatting for the language you are working with.

• I also use Developer Console on Salesforce itself. Salesforce comes with a console where you can create and edit Apex code directly through the browser.
• I use SOAPUI (https://www.soapui.org/) when working with SOAP Integrations.
  
  

• I use Postman (https://www.postman.com/) when working with REST or SOAP Integrations

• I’ll mention some websites I use often as well. I use Workbench (https://workbench.developerforce.com/) when I need to run SOQL queries and interact with the data that’s in the database.

What I Use for Research

You will usually find me on the Apex Developer Guide (https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.apexcode.meta/apexcode/apex_dev_guide.htm) when I’m working through the code to find the correct functions or methods I need to accomplish the requirements for a project. Depending on the project, if I’m building a Lightning Component (https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/component-library/overview/components), I’ll make use of the Lightning Component Library. It’s also super useful.

Well that’s it! Hope this helps you in your coding journey. Have a great day!

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