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Comment by TbobbyZ | Hacker News Reader

As a Salesforce developer, I find myself feeling like I'm on a different planet compared to other developers. I can't:

- develop locally. - easily backup using source control. - contribute to or create open source projects easily. There are a lot more barriers to do so compared to JavaScript or Golang communities.

In addition, I'm always working with sugar-coated Salesforce tech. Apex (kinda like Java), Aura Components (crappy js framework that doesn't even come close to react).

I'm happy that Salesforce is going in the right direction with their web components, but it still feels like they are 10-15 years behind.

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Have you looked into Salesforce DX? (https://developer.salesforce.com/blogs/2018/02/getting-start...)

>- develop locally. - easily backup using source control. - contribute to or create open source projects easily.

It addresses all of these concerns nicely.

I'm also a full-time SF developer and am finding the transition to DX a bit rough, to be honest.

They're getting there, but it's still beta for a reason

Salesforce DX has been generally available since October 2017: https://developer.salesforce.com/blogs/2017/10/salesforce-dx...

They made it to generally available to everyone, but still had a (*beta) tied to it for a while. Maybe that’s gone now, but it’s still missing a lot of essential features and they know it.

DX works great if you have a new project in a new org. But as a contractor, there are many times I have to work in orgs that are 4-5 years old that have been through tons of admins and devs. I can't exactly convert an old org instantly to a dx project. Plus, as a contractor I'm not generally paid to convert their meta data. They want new features or bug fixes. They don't give a flying duck if their org is dx or how their code is organized.

> They don't give a flying duck if their org is dx or how their code is organized.

I understand this 100%. I often end up using ForceCode (https://github.com/celador/ForceCode) for the get-in-get-out projects.

>But as a contractor, there are many times I have to work in orgs that are 4-5 years old

I'm a contractor as well. You know, there's a ton of legacy shite out there that isn't greenfield and you just need to get in there and guddle (Scottish word) about to earn the bucks. Sure I'd love to work all day long with .NET Core (or even .NET 4.7), but I also need to maintain a bunch of crap that dates back to 2006 and written in .NET 2.0. But as a contractor I kinda get on with it. It pays for my hobbies (model railways and building analogue synths, growing chillis and other stuff), so I kinda just suck it up because the rates are pretty ok.

And you know, there's no shame in being a maintenance dev, some of the best devs I've met are looking after ancient crap long after the overpaid, unsupervised "superheros" that dug those holes moved on to their next 1000% glory roles, and we have to mop up afterwards (for a tidy hourly rate).

What’s the actual point of being a “SF developer” or investing in sales force development over traditional development then ?

It sounds super limiting and frustrating ?

It also sounds like very non transferable skills you’re learning which might be difficult to use in other roles ?

There is a high demand. Like exceptionally high. As a contractor I have endless work and never have a hard time negotiating my rate. There is such high demand because Salesforce is not as sexy as being a front-end dev that uses react or a back-end dev that uses go.

It's limiting and can be frustrating, yes.

Apex and aura components are not transferable directly, but what is is learning how to work with enterprise software. Plus, my bred and butter with Salesforce work is integrations, which has given me plenty of opportunities to learn other languages as needed to get the work done.

Yep. Having a niche is usually more from doing things that other people don’t find sexy than anything else.

How’d you learn to work with these Salesforce technologies? Any specific book recommendations?

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/credentials/administratorov...

Get a couple certifications. Once I got 3-4 and a few years of experience, recruiters approach me on regular basis. FYI I have no college degree. Companies don't care. Certs and experience are worth more than any degree in the Salesforce space.

We've been able to develop Salesforce apps using React. There are some good open source libraries out there.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stabilizing-salesforce-lightn...

Sure, I've done that in the past. The problem with using a third-party framework is the longevity of the org. As a developer, I want to leave an org in better shape than when I started.

If I created an angular app here, a react app there, and elm lang app over there, you are dramatically increasing the overhead to maintain the org. IMO, it's better to play it safe by using Salesforce's tech stack so your client has an easier time maintaining their org in the future. Future Salesforce devs will thank you too :D

Plus, there is a very high chance that future interviews for Salesforce dev gigs, they are NOT going to ask if you know React/Angular. Nice to have skills for sure, but they want to know how quickly you can get started working in their org. And chances are their apps are built with apex, Visualforce, or aura components. I'd rather spend a year building with aura components to make my new project transition easy, than spend a year building with react and have to pick up aura components all over again.

When our company switched to Salesforce to convert a custom admin tool to use Salesforce, they forced us to buy consulting time with consultants to help us learn the system. It was written in to our contract as an extra cost. Maybe our business was pure trash at negotiating, but I think it's pretty common.

From a cynical and maybe overly negative point of view, it felt like Salesforce developers are kind of like contracted mafia enforcers. As long as the devs play by Salesforce's rules and do a decent job (i.e. make Salesforce salesmen money), they throw them free, lucrative, repetitive, braindead, unfulfilling business. In our case, they literally couldn't screw up - we had to use them, and no amount of complaining to our Sales guy or trying to understand why the main engineer was such a kook was going to change our situation.

Seems like a really lucrative hustle to get into, as long as you don't mind dealing with absolute mediocrity.

Because you get to work as a tech consultant fixing sf issues and extending SF for the many many corporate customers that use it. There are whole agencies built around doing SF implementations and other SF work and there is plenty of money to be made in this space. I know people at Deloitte that went from SF consultant to director and even one to partner.

Plenty of devs work with specific products as these products are used by many companies. I know lots of ERP developers that make very good money scripting customisations into ERP systems, it's a pain of a system but you're right at the heart of the business working on very high value contracts.

Another big reason is money.

I've done some Salesforce work n the past, on a booking system that needed to read/write with their Salesforce instance. Their Salesforce dev spent a lot of times in our office during the build, and after a few drinks we were chatting about prospects as a Salesforce dev.

He pretty much echoed what you said - it's a different world to standard dev, and you can go quite deep into their ecosystem, but the work is always there, and a good Salesforce dev is worth his weight in gold so companies will bend over backwards to accommodate you - including paying your named price. It's depressing to write, but he probably earned 3-4x my salary for doing work that seemed pretty easy to him, and a quick glance on LinkedIn shows that he's still doing Salesforce work now.

Can you suggest any resources for getting into salesforce development? I am aware of trailhead and its seems to be a great place to start. Any other resources?

Look at books on Amazon... maybe. Honestly trailhead, studying for certs, and building stuff are the best way.

focusonforce.com is nice.

Best book I've read on learning the how to build with Salesforce using clicks over code is: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Salesforce-Development-With...

As an ABAP developer, we are on a planet next to yours...

There are efforts for all those things, but it's still painful.

Take a look at https://bluecanvas.io/ it might help you with some of that.

local development was just previewed at TrailheadX. It's on the way.

but can I have an entire org locally on my machine?

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