GameForce, Part 1. Intro
It has been a while since the last time I have written something in this blog, or, as a matter of fact, it has been a while since I have written any code for myself. Well, I suppose it is natural when you code for living. But personal mini-projects are invaluable when it comes to personal growth, and so I am a bit daunted by the fact, that the last time I was working on something like this was when I was still carrying a Windows Phone in my pocket… Yeah, it has been a while… And when it comes to my blog, I stopped writing articles somewhere around the time when I switched from Dynamics 365 FO to Salesforce — there was just not enough experience behind my back to have the ability to comfortably write deep technical articles about Salesforce. But I like writing, and I like coding, and since I am on a sabbatical at the moment, I think it is time to pick some personal mini-project and write a series (hopefully 😅) of articles about it or not.
Admittedly, quite often I am trying to kill two birds with one stone, and this is not an exception. Because of that, it makes sense to explain my reasoning behind this endeavor, so that you can decide whether you even want to spend your time reading about it.
Improving my knowledge and gaining experience while working on a smaller-scale project
I am a strong believer in the idea of compounding small gradual improvements over time. But, in our professional lives, we are rarely given an opportunity to traverse the unknown and experiment on a daily basis. Work routine is more about having a controlled predictable outcome, rather than growing as an individual. And small-scale projects like this are the ideal sandbox to test new things out and sometimes to dive deep into the areas that you have little or no experience with. I want to think that I am a decent developer, but I rarely set up the development process from scratch, and I have limited experience working on open-source projects like this, so there are some obvious benefits for me. And things that I am not realizing yet, but I will be forced to tackle and as a result will become a better professional ready for his next “big” project. Hell, I am even okay with this project failing miserably, as long as I get new experience and knowledge out of it.
Sharing my experience with others
I will be the first to admit — there is simply no better way to learn something other than rolling up your sleeves and doing it. But sometimes we need guidance or a little push in the right direction. I think no one would argue with the humongous influence that open-source software has had on our world. And there were countless times when I’ve been relying on others sharing their knowledge and/or experience, or even code. And now we see that without sharing, it would be unimaginable to create something even close to ChatGPT or GitHub Copilot. So, it always felt right to try and add up a bit of my own experience into this huge pile of information that we all call the web. And hopefully, it will help some of you with your day-to-day or give you a little nudge to start something on your own.
Creating a Salesforce AppExchange product, that I would be able to monetize in the future
As I’ve said earlier — failure is an option, but I would really like my idea to succeed in the end. And ultimate success for me would be to release something to Salesforce AppExchange (App Store analog for Salesforce apps) and start selling it. It would also force me to not only work on something as a developer but also as an entrepreneur. And, in the end, it will become a source of passive income for me and an inspiration for you.
Building a new habit of writing each day
I’ve recently been reading a book about building habits, and writing is a thing that I would really love to become actual habit of mine. The problem with writing as a hobby is that you actually need something to write about. And, ideally, this theoretical “thing” is better to be something that you have an actual knowledge about (that is why good fiction writers thoroughly investigate the topic that they are writing about). In my case, it means I have to write about coding. And hopefully, I will be able to make it at least somewhat entertaining for you to read.
Hopefully, the reasons described above make sense to you, and I’ve managed to intrigue you just enough to read my upcoming articles. I don’t want to commit to a regular schedule of publishing articles because I am afraid that I’ll eventually end up in a situation where there is just not enough progress made and as a result — nothing to write about. I envision this series being a project journal of a sort, where I describe how I work, what pitfalls I’ve encountered, and how to avoid them. Each article will have links to the next article in a series (in case it is done) as well as a link to the previous one. So, if you are still curious — click on the link below, to find out what is GameForce and why I think it might be a cool addition to Salesforce. Also, you can check out the repository here, to see the current progress.
