This is no April’s Fool joke. Yesterday, I finally passed the Salesforce Advanced Developer Multiple choice exam!!! It was my second attempt. The first attempt was 6 months ago, but I now know that I was not ready then, so it was a good thing that I did not pass.
Back then, I barely knew the material. I thought I knew it because I had memorized it, but that did not mean that I “understood it”. I am now happy to say that I “know” this stuff. I know it like I know the back of my hand. And, that is a VERY good thing, because I now wait to complete the next stage of the process…the dreaded programming assignment.
Unfortunately, I have to wait until the next limited registration period (which is not until June 2). But, I am confident that the skills I have acquired so far will not atrophy before then. If anything, they will just continue to improve.
So, how did I learn this stuff like the back of my hand? I did it by following EVERY suggestion on Forceprepare. I basically did all of the following:
- Obviously, I memorized all the notes I have posted on this site (but that was just the beginning and was not enough by itself to pass)
- I watched the entire re-broadcast of the 501 Dev Class (which I posted about here). I took additional notes from that and posted them to this site (still not enough to pass). UPDATE, sorry to say but Salesforce has since removed the re-broadcast links from the 501 class.
- I watched all of the 8 training videos on Pluralsight (which I posted about here)
- I watched at least a dozen or more videos from Dreamforce.
- I read countless blog articles from experts like Jeff Douglas, Matt Lacey, Bob Buzzard, etc
- I worked through all the code in Bob Buzzards latest book, The Visualforce Development Cookbook (which I reviewed here).
- I worked through ALL the Workbooks on DeveloperForce (they have been updated recently and they are REALLY GOOD).
- I read through the entire Developers Guide (and YES, I know it is LONG).
- The MOST important thing: I played with all the code on my Developer org (which is now packed with best practice code examples).
When I took the test yesterday, it was so easy to me. I could see through all the tricks they had put in. It seemed really obvious to me (which I think will make the programming assignment phase a breeze). Bring it on, I say. I just wish I could do it sooner.