^Don't listen to that.
You always heat the work. You need the work hot enough that the flux in the solder etches and cleans the material being soldered. When it's hot enough, the solder will flow to it. All electronic components are designed to tolerate the heat of soldering. That's what they are made to do. Be soldered.
Electronics don't like someone holding a 45watt iron to them for 30 seconds to solder one 20 gauge wire. That's bad form. Of course electronics can handle the heat of soldering, that's how they are connected...
Getting the heat in and out as fast as possible is the proper way to solder. Always heat the work, and touch the solder to the item your soldering, not the iron. Although having a fresh shiny dot of solder on the iron helps heat transfer immensely.
Buying a bottle of rosin flux should be on everyone's list. A tiny dot has more flux than 1" of .060" solder, and even more of electronics grade .03* size. For plated/coated items, SOP is to add a small dot of flux and heat the area with an iron until the flux melts and flows. Once that's done, it can be tinned with solder, then wire attached. I recently soldered my vivi nova as well as a boge cartomizer. The pins/casings on both were chrome plated. As you know, it's nigh-impossible to solder to chrome. I brushed a small section with a SS brush to break up oxides, fluxed and heated, and the solder flowed instantly. Took less than 3 seconds with the iron to solder a 16 gauge wire.
Technique and experience is far more important than quality of tools. In college for electronics engineering, we were forced to build solder LADDERS out of .030" solder. Now that's FUN!