What if I told you that no matter what your educational or professional background is, you could build a cloud app today? Even a couple years ago the notion of this seemed unrealistic; however, just like the shift in technology can change on the drop of a pin, so can the makers who produce it.
It has been an accepted truth for quite some time that a software developer comes from a computer science background or some related discipline. This notion that they are a highly specialized and formally trained individual is acknowledged and familiar. While this is still the norm in many cases, it doesn’t have to be the only way.
The new era of software developers is here, and the prerequisites to get started are recognizing the problems you want to solve and having the desire to solve them. “I don’t know how to program software” is no longer an excuse to write off building cloud applications for your business. You can now point and click your way to effective business solutions; all you need to figure out is the path necessary to get you there.
Point-and-click cloud database building. Configurable security profiles and permissions. Business process automation. Standard user interfaces. The ability make it mobile by checking one box … All of these complex software solution enhancements and more can be utilized without any code.
Force.com, the core platform for Salesforce.com’s business apps, is designed to help you focus on how to meet the requirements for building out your own business solutions rather than get bogged down on how to execute your ideas and the resources necessary to implement them. With a few configurations set up for your organization, Force.com will handle all of the back-end logistics of how things happen so that you don’t have to.
Cloud App Development Learning Paths
There are a few different learning paths you can pursue to start building apps. For those who learn best by doing, we are releasing several Quick Tutorials, in addition to our Force.com workbooks, which act as modular walk through tutorials that you can complete in a matter of minutes to learn bite-sized development concepts on the platform.
If you learn best by reading and digesting concepts, or would like context into why you do things in the Quick Tutorials, check out this series of wiki articles about understanding cloud application development. Each article dissects an individual piece of the development process and gives a high level description of what tools exist for each step, explains how to use these tools, and links to deeper dives on individual concepts.
These resources are available here, where you can also find other learning tools to help you get started building. There are already some resources there to start building today, but more videos, tutorials, articles, and other learning tools will be added soon in the upcoming weeks to give you the resources you need to succeed.
Finally, if you would like to see this app building process come to life in less than an hour, please check out my webinar with Shannon Hale, the Product Manager of Declarative Apps, on building codeless cloud apps. We work through an example of building an app to solve our business requirements, explain concepts while simultaneously building them out, and answer questions from the viewers at the end.
Go Forth and Develop Cloud Apps
If you had any doubt about your abilities to be an application developer, reconsider the possibilities. Not only are the tools there to help you execute your ideas, but now there is also a more centralized learning forum to help enable you on your journey. You can be the solution to your business problems, all you need to do is ask the right questions.