Following the Developer Trail: New Trailhead Content
Back in November, I published a guest post from Jayvin Arora on Trailhead, and at the time it was something I still hadn't had a chance to play with myself. Not long after that I signed up, and powered through everything available, not neccessarily beacause it covered content I didn't know, but mostly to see how it works as a learning resource.
Learning With Trailhead
In short, Trailhead is a great way to learn the platform. Not only is the content available presented in a logical and consistent manner, it actually tests you. Not just through questions, but through getting you to write code. It then connects to the Salesforce org you're developing in and actually runs your code to make sure you've completed the requirements. In my humble opininon this is the next best thing to having a person review your code, and obviously a lot faster meaning you don't get held up waiting before the next module. There is an aspect of gamification to the whole process too, where you earn badges and points as you progress through the content, right now I have 4000 points and 3 badges to my name, and hopefully I'll add some more of both this weekend.
Recent Updates
One of the biggest detractors for Trailhead on my first trip through it was that the automated testing was only on some of the modules, more than a few simply had a button labeled "Mark as Read", which felt a bit like cheating. I'm pleased to say that there have been a few updates to Trailhead recently, with new tests added to the modules that were missing them previously.
In addition there are two new modules available, both of which are of particular interest to me (no developer ever stops learning): Data Security and Change Management. So if you've not started yet, now is the time to do so. If you're new to the platform there is no better way to learn so get stuck in, and if you get stuck, there's always the StackExchange to help you out.