Ask HN: I don't get the point of developing for Salesforce | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I don't get the point of developing for Salesforce

1 pointjamesmp989 comments

So I'm reading this: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/force_com_dev_beginner/starting_force_com/starting_discovering and a far as I can tell (please correct me if I'm wrong) I would develop on Salesforce if I wanted to build enterprise / company applications.

But I can do that with plain old Java + Spring or ASP.Net, why would I use Salesforce?

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Well you get transactional database, web server, runtime, api and few other business tools right out of the box. Like, you can register at their developer portal and be pushing public facing code in around 2 minutes.

I do think their positioning is quite unique in the market. AFAIK the closest that comes to such completeness is Firebase, however their database is NoSQL.

On a bigger picture, I think Salesforce has a lot of empathy for the customer/client/user - they take away a lot of technology and lets you focus on information needs. Sort of a bit like Apple.

You are correct, the Force.com part of the Salesforce platform is particularly well suited for database centric business applications, that may or may not be related to Salesforce's Sales, Service or Marketing clouds (the core SaaS of Salesforce).

To do it with POJ + Spring or ASP.net means there is a ton of wheel that you need to re-invent, especially around security, reliability, data protection/sharing, user management and so on.

If you go ahead and to a couple of the trails in Trailhead this will start to become more obvious.

Because you can say Salesforce and buy instant Credibility with every sales exec.

:/ Really? Do you know what the job prospect for Salesforce dev's in the upcoming year is?

These are not meant for "beginner self taught developers". The salesforce platform is meant for people who are already involved with salesforce in some way. Either businesses selling to the enterprise or salespeople trying to add some devskills or god knows what.

If you want to "learn programming", this is obviously a pretty stupid idea.

I do not know what the job prospets of "salesforce devs" are. As far as I know, there's no such thing as a "salesforce dev". You will certainly be better off studying java if marketability is your concern.

I generally know programming I just can't get a job doing it.

Full disclosure: I have been doing Dev Relations at Salesforce for the last 14 years.

Salesforce is more than a sales application. Indeed, platform aside, there is customer service, marketing automation, ecommerce and productivity (like google docs et al) as part of the core plug an go application suite.

Developers come into the picture when it comes to customizing Salesforce core applications and, due to the platform exposed as Force.com and Heroku, creating new b2b/b2c applications. The developer skills that are effective in this environment are Javascript/HTML/CSS, understanding of oauth and integration technologies (REST, SOAP), database concepts such as triggers and stored procedures. Salesforce provides a server side language, Apex, that is derived from Java.

Mobile SDKs are available as well. So, it is a combination of skills that could have been acquired doing development on other platforms.

There is a ton of opportunity for Developers in the Salesforce eco-system, indeed demand currently outstrips supply. For a taste https://www.indeed.com/q-Force-Com-Developer-$130,000-jobs.h...

Do you think it's possible for a self-taught and (primarily) hobbyist developer to make his way into the market. I figure it might be smart to get into a niche market

It is definitely possible. I know of a number of people who have done exactly this. In addition to learning the basics with Trailhead, I'd also suggest looking near by for a Salesforce developer group. There is even StackExchange for Salesforce that is completely community driven for having questions answered. (salesforce.stackexchange.com).

FYI, I'm another one of the devrel team at Salesforce. Dave went on vacation just before you posted this.

Cheers.

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