Salesforce Developer Podcast

Paul Prescod is a performance engineer at Salesforce.org. He is also involved with a project called Snowfakery. This program is capable of creating complicated and unique data records for testing.

In this episode, Paul and I are talking about everything Snowfakery. We also get into some of his background, including his work with a company that created mobile games which motivated behavioral change. Listen in to hear about all this and more.

Show Highlights:

• How Paul got into his role at Salesforce.org.
• His impetus for building Snowfakery.
• How complex data models are and why.
• Where the name Snowfakery came from.
• How Snowfakery works.
• How much the program scales.
• The outputs Snowfakery is capable of.
• The benefits of Python.
• How the developer community is involved with the creation of Snowfakery.

Links:

1. Paul on Twitter: https://twitter.com/prescod
2. Paul on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulprescod/
3. Paul on Github: https://github.com/prescod
4. CumulusCI Trailblazer Group: https://trailblazers.salesforce.com/_ui/core/chatter/groups/GroupProfilePage?
5. Snowfakery Github Repo: https://github.com/SFDO-Tooling/Snowfakery/
6. Snowfakery Docs: https://snowfakery.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
7. Paul's blog post on Snowfakery: https://medium.com/salesforce-architects/generate-realistic-datasets-with-snowfakery-5349225b033d

Karishma Lalwani is a Senior Director of Project Management here at Salesforce. Today I’m talking with her all about scalable architecture. In our conversation, we discuss what scalable architecture means on an enterprise level and some takeaways for developers.

Karishma was also once known as the “queen of encryption,” a title her former coworkers gave her as a result of her work on a pilot product for platform encryption. Karishma has a long history helping customers be successful at scale and advocating for them internally, tune in to hear from her wealth of knowledge and experience.

Show Highlights:

• What the frontier scale team does.
• What elastic infrastructure is and how it helps meet demand.
• What connected platforms are.
• How the “always on” model works.
• Best practices for developers working with SOQL.
• What not to do as a developer working with a 10 record query and why.
• Why row locking and sharing are problematic.
• What developers need to know about “bulkifying” code.
• What big objects are and how developers can use them to scale.
• What Vaccine Cloud is and the challenges it presented to architecture.
• All about Karishma’s upcoming podcast.

Links:

1. Karishma on Twitter: https://twitter.com/karishmalalwani
2. Karishma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karishmalalwani/

Mitch Spano is an Application Engineer over at Google. After running into orgs with complex problems juggling automated processes and triggers,  Mitch created the Trigger Actions Framework project and that is what we are discussing today. We also get into some best practices for Apex, which Mitch is very experienced in learning and using.

In the episode, Mitch shares a fun story about how he got started writing computer programs just so he could make his math tests easier. From there he was forever hooked on the coding ecosystem. We’ll go into the use cases for the Trigger Actions Framework, how both developers and admins can adopt it, and what makes it tick.  Tune in to learn more.

Show Highlights:

• Things that developers who are new to Salesforce should know.
• The difference between an “object” in Salesforce and computer programming.
• The first thing Mitch does when starting a Salesforce project.
• The issues with using opportunity trigger handlers as solutions for automation and order of execution.
• What the Trigger Actions Framework is.
• The metadata structure of this framework.
• How developers can replace what they’re doing with this new framework.
• Advanced features the framework for controlling the flow of actions
• Options for testing with this framework.
• When you would use the feature within the framework that allows you to limit any further actions on an object.

Links:

1. Mitch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MitchSpano
2. Mitch on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchspano/
3. Mitch on Github: https://github.com/mitchspano
4. Trigger Actions Framework: https://github.com/mitchspano/apex-trigger-actions-framework

Vivek Chalwa is a Principal ISV Platform Expert here at Salesforce. Today I’m sitting down with him to talk about second-generation packaging and what it means for developers. We also get into how 2GP connects to things like declarative packing configuration, Apex, and orgs.

Vivek has a strong evangelistic angle to him and he even made his way into the Salesforce ecosystem by getting involved in the developer community and eventually becoming a developer group leader. Tune in to hear more from Vivek on the features of 2GP, how it works with your source control and what’s on the roadmap with it.

Show Highlights:

• Why Vivek started off being a developer group leader.
• How he came to actually work for Salesforce.
• What is 2GP and how it is different from 1GP.
• How declarative packaging configuration works with 2GP.
• How all of this helps with structuring solutions.
• How 2GP pairs with SalesforceDX and source centric development.
• The benefits of flexible versioning and how it works with 2 GP.
• How package bundles will work.

Links:

1. Vivek on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VivekMChawla
2. Vivek on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/VivekMChawla
3. Vivek on Github: https://github.com/VivekMChawla
4. Deep Dive: 2GP for ISVs (Trailmix): https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/users/isv-platform-experts/trailmixes/deep-dive-2gp
5. 2GP AMA - April 2021 (Trailmix): https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/users/isv-platform-experts/trailmixes/apr-2021-2gp-ama
6. Documentation for Second-Generation Packaging (2GP) (Trailmix): https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/users/isv-platform-experts/trailmixes/documentation-for-2gp
7. 2GP Deep Dive Video Series: https://salesforce.vidyard.com/watch/tgk3WYUrpxc2SiLRrrsLSS?&_ga=2.52820139.26567925.1619449638-1751578069.1619449638

Greg Whitworth is the Director of LWC’s application and backend services. He’s also the Director of Standards and Web Platform here at Salesforce. Today, I am talking with him about his long history of working with web browsers. Specifically, we get into his experience with web standards committees, discuss how these standards come about and the benefits they can have for Salesforce and it’s developers.

Greg has a very unique perspective and history with these topics. Tune in to hear it and lots of great background information on web standards.

Show Highlights:

• What Greg’s job looks like day to day.
• All about web browser committees and how to join one.
• How something becomes a web standard.
• How his input on standards benefits Salesforce, its developers, and its customers.
• Examples of standards that are helpful to Salesforce.
• How standards improve developers’ skills and user experience.
• What the composite layer is.
• What polyfills are and how to work with them.

Links:

1. Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregwhitworth/
2. Greg on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregwhitworth?lang=en
3. Greg on Github: https://github.com/gregwhitworth
4. Greg's blog: https://www.gwhitworth.com/posts/
5. Braces to Pixels: https://alistapart.com/article/braces-to-pixels/
6. Braces to Pixels video: https://vimeo.com/182528420
7. Customizable Control Presentation: https://noti.st/gregwhitworth
8. The story of CSS Grid: https://alistapart.com/article/the-story-of-css-grid-from-its-creators/
9. Open UI: https://open-ui.org/

Kalina Tyrkiel is a user experience writer in Poland. Though she is not a part of our Salesforce community, she does use her background in psychology to write content about neurodiversity and how it impacts user experience design. 

In this episode, we discuss some of the ins and outs all of us must think about when it comes to accessibility. This includes some of the different ways we need to build out our interfaces when considering the neurodivergent. Tune in to learn more.

Show Highlights:

• What neurodiversity is and how broad neurodivergent symptoms can be.
• Some accessibility guidelines for typography.
• Why plain language is one of the biggest allies for neurodiverse user groups.
• Why metaphors can be confusing for many people.
• How to create neurodiverse user-friendly buttons.
• How colors and animation impact a neurodiverse user.
• Why closed captions are good and autoplay is bad when considering neurodiverse users.
• Resources to help you improve the accessibility of your pages.

Links:

• Kalina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kalinatyrkiel/

• Kalina’s author profile: https://www.editorx.com/shaping-design/author/kalina-tyrkiel

• Neurodiversity in Web Design: https://www.editorx.com/shaping-design/article/what-is-neurodiversity-in-web-design

Sources:

• On people with autism and their greater ability to process information

• W3C Guidelines for cognitive accessibility

• W3C notes on creating content for people with cognitive and learning disabilities

• Recommendations from Living Autism

• LexAble – solutions for neurodiverse users

• Rachel-Morgan Trimmer, neurodiversity consultant

• TED Talk by Tim Goldstein, a neurodiverse communication specialist

• Interview with an autistic user

Related Tools:

• Hemingway: https://hemingwayapp.com/
• Stark: https://www.getstark.co/
• Contrast Checker: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Chuck Liddell is the CEO of Valence App Incorporated. In that role, he has the opportunity to leverage his skills in both business and technology. These are skills he has developed throughout his life and the multiple roles he has filled.

In this episode, I’m talking with Chuck about the work he has done in fostering, curating, and teaching others about advanced topics on Salesforce architecture. We highlight his many community engagements and get into some detail about Valence the company and the app. Tune in to learn all about the many projects Chuck has done and how they might be able to help you.

Show Highlights:

• How Chuck learned to combine business and technology.
• How he helped Cactusforce identify great technical content.
• How to communicate your strong technical ability.
• How Chuck knows when something is good technical content.
• What The Extracurricular is and how it came to be.
• Why they structured The Extracurricular the way they did.
• What Open-Force.org is and what brought Chuck to start it.
• The JSON Parser he made.
• Why custom metadata types are so powerful.
• Courses that can help you learn Salesforce architecture.
• How Chuck uses Salesforce to help his community.
• What the Valence platform is and some of the tech behind it.

Links:

1. Chuck on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckliddell/
2. The Extracurricular: http://theextracurricular.org/
3. Good Day Sir Slack Signup: https://www.gooddaysirpodcast.com/community,
4. Open-Force.org: https://www.open-force.org/
5. Open-Force on Github: https://github.com/open-force
6. Chuck's London Calling Session: https://www.londonscalling.net/sessions/advanced-custom-metadata-types-down-the-rabbit-hole-alice/
7. Valence: https://valence.app/s/

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Paul Battisson is the Chief Operating Officer for Cloud Galacticos. In this episode, we are talking about the convergence of two of his favorite things: “super hardcore nerdy math” (as Paul puts it) and Apex.

Paul has performed some unique experiments that combined his love for math with his love for Apex. In our conversation, we talk about those experiments at length. We go into some detail about what factors can affect Apex performance and weirdly, talk a lot about pigeons.

Show Highlights:

• Paul’s inspiration for learning how to code.
• What Machine Learning is and how it is architected
• Why Paul wanted to get Machine Learning (ML) in Apex.
• The difference between Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
• Where matrices fall into the toolset of creating Machine Learning.
• How linear regressions are utilized in Machine Learning.
• All about Paul’s Virtual Reality (VR) experiment in Apex.
• The pitfalls of enterprise VR and where Paul sees it going in the future.
• Specifics on how to increase performance in iterators
• What heap size is and how it affects performance
• What Paul’s two books are about.

Links:

1. Paul's Blog Posts on Machine Learning in Apex:

• Part 1: https://paulbattisson.com/blog/2018/ai-for-salesforce-developers-part-1/

• Part 2: https://paulbattisson.com/blog/2018/ai-for-salesforce-developers-part-2/

• Part 3: https://paulbattisson.com/blog/2019/ai-for-salesforce-developers-part-3/

2. Better Performance in Loops:

• Part 1: https://paulbattisson.com/blog/2014/force-com-cast-episode-6-faster-loops/ 
• Part 2: https://paulbattisson.com/blog/2014/force-com-casts-episode-7-faster-loops-part-2/

3. Follow up blog on performance: https://paulbattisson.com/blog/2020/Salesforce-Performance-Some-Thoughts/

4. Dreamforce deck of doing VR in Visualforce: https://www.slideshare.net/pbattisson/salesforce1-vr-immersive-data-visualization

5. Learning Salesforce Development With Apex: https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Salesforce-Development-Apex-English/dp/9389898188/

6. Mastering Apex Programming: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1800200927

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Francis Pindar is a Cloud Architect and platform owner for NetStronghold. On top of managing those roles, he is the author of his own site over at Admin to Architect.

In this episode, Francis is sharing some of his best tips and tricks for learning Salesforce. We discuss a variety of other topics, as well, such as Francis’ work in the movie industry, his co-founding of the London’s Calling conference, and the Salesforce certification process. Tune in to hear it all!

Show Highlights:

• How Harry Potter brought Francis into the Salesforce ecosystem.
• Why he went into the training segment of Salesforce.
• What led to the creation of London’s Calling.
• The challenges COVID brought for London’s Calling in 2020.
• Why a hybrid conference model is harder to put on than an all-live event.
• Why admins and developers should look into getting the architect certification.
• How much time you need to get your architect cert.
• The kind of content Francis has online to help people study for their certifications.
• What the Salesforce capability map is.

Links:

1. Francis on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/radnip
2. Francis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francisuk/
3. eLearning Site: https://www.AdminToArchitect.com/

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com\

Rob Baillie is a Senior Technical Architect over at makepositive. Rob is passionate about extreme programming, something he has developed throughout his career. We discuss how that came to be in this episode.

Rob’s experience with extreme programming has always had a solid foundation in unit testing.  We go into how mocking works and specifically how his project, AMOSS, helps developers implement it.  Tune in to hear more about this from the very knowledgeable Rob Baillie.

Show Highlights:

• How Rob got interested in computer science.
• How he eventually got into the Salesforce ecosystem.
• What his transition from PHP to Apex was like.
• What mocking and test doubles in unit testing are.
• What StubProvider does and why it’s so powerful.
• What AMOSS is and how it makes unit testing easier.
• The difference between test stubs and test spies.
• What a brittle unit test is and how to avoid it.
• Why we should view unit testing as documentation.

Links:

1. Rob on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BobaliciousBob
2. Rob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertbaillie/
3. Rob on Github: https://github.com/bobalicious
   • AMOSS: https://github.com/bobalicious/amoss
     • SObject Fabricator: https://github.com/bobalicious/SObjectFabricator
     • Is a fork of https://github.com/mattaddy/SObjectFabricator

      4. Rob's London Calling Talk:            https://www.londonscalling.net/sessions/stop-trying-to-mock-  me-and-mock-me/

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com