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[nutballs]

 

[perkiset]

[isthisthingon]

 

I'll assume that's a serious question nutballs.  Salesforce is a very robust cloud-based CRM with a development environment that seriously kicks ass.  Calling it a CRM is really limited since it's a lot more than that.  Going over the features would be impossible here but I'll add a few links for anyone who's interested:

Main site with general info
www.salesforce.com

Developer site
http://developer.force.com

Application framework basics
http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Application_Framework

The Force.com platform is very supportive of the open source community and has quite a lot of support from it.  Free tools are available to integrate with and utilize PHP, Ruby on Rails, Java, Adobe Air/Flex, .NET and Ajax including cloud integration tools for Amazon, Google and Facebook: http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Tools.  The development environment is very similar to using Java/C# with ASP.NET, PHP, etc.  Why is this something you may want to check out   

For starters, at the developer link above you can create as many development orgs (virtual organizations) as you want for free.  The tools are all free such as the Force.com Eclipse plug-in and they have a gigantic library of free downloads at the AppExchange (http://sites.force.com/appexchange/apex/home).  But getting everything for free doesn't mean you're making money    However, developing applications for the AppExchange have made many people a lot of money    Some businesses are based completely on their development and sales of these products.

The AppExchange does your marketing for you.  You simply come up with the basics like product description, keywords, logo, etc., and leave the SEO rat race for those battling it out on Google    Come up with a good idea (and there's a world of chargeable, custom development needs at SF) and bring it to life with nothing but the time you choose to devote to it.  It's also significantly faster to develop in than Java and .NET (http://blog.sforce.com/sforce/2009/05/research-report-finds-forcecom-app-dev-almost-5-times-faster-than-java-or-net.html). 

The AppExchange handles all aspects of merchandising and pays you directly for sales including initial and/or monthly recurring fees.  Using a simple tool called the License Manager you can offer trials and manage who gets to use your custom app: http://www.salesforce.com/web-common/assets/doccache/MultiForceDir/01530000000Fp6hAAC.pdf.

Contract programming/consulting in the Force.com environment happens to be my job these days.  But after getting my feet wet I couldn't imagine not coding in a cloud environment like it.  It has challenges such as execution governors and limits but these are actually fun to creatively work with.  It's the only way a true multi-tenant architecture can reliably exist.

Here's a link to the app I wrote recently: http://sites.force.com/appexchange/listingDetail?listingId=a0N300000016gkMEAQ.  It's a basic time and expense tool for Salesforce.  People are already asking for it since this functionality is not standard.  It's easy to see what people would buy.  You can browse Force.com Ideas (http://ideas.salesforce.com/popular/force.com_platform?skin=adn) to see what people actually want.  It's a maturing platform with a rapidly growing community and lot's of room for new brains.

AppExchange aside, if you learn the ropes there's an endless stream of custom development requests on Force.com blogs for comparable pay to other development gigs.  Good Apex developers make $150-$250 per hour.  If you know Java, C++, C#, Delphi, etc. then learning Apex is a snap.  I'll post some code later and see if there's any interest on the Cache.  I'm also planning a thread on test-driven development in this section.

Oh well, there's the short answer 

[jammaster82]

I'll post some code later and see if there's any interest on the Cache.  I'm also planning a thread on test-driven development in this section.

[perkiset]

Um, so you have a (forum-like) environment, where people post what they want/need from SF, a development environment to handle that, and an app store like the iTunes store to market, transact and distribute licensable plugins that you write. Correct?

It sounds almost too good to be true. Why don't more people do it? Is it just too complex? Too forward thinking? Or is it limited and clunky like dBase III dev was, so there are few developers that really can get into/behind it?

(Reflects that this would be something the Jammaster *should* be interested in...)

[nutballs]

i was both completely serious and being a smart ass at the same time. (im like that...)

I actually am thinking to develop an internal app for improving my company's offering to our clients. We do highly targeted, high quality, lead generation campaigns utilizing multiple media channels, as well as executive door openers (appointment setting). There is a bit of reporting I do, but it is lightweight ghettorific. Most of these clients use Salesforce anyway, so integration would make sense.

It is only something that recently i have started to even think of, and you bringing it up is coincidental and convenient timing.

Primarily it would be a selfish endeavor to make our product more valuable. Though I am always full of ideas so who knows.
Im sure I can fit it in somewhere in the 18 hour days I been working for the past 2 months... lol

[isthisthingon]

Um, so you have a (forum-like) environment, where people post what they want/need from SF, a development environment to handle that, and an app store like the iTunes store to market, transact and distribute licensable plugins that you write. Correct?

Precisely, sans the "um."

It sounds almost too good to be true.

My thoughts exactly when I first learned about it.  Just for the record, I don't engage in any multi-level marketing schemes and my body is only for sale at market price (primates only).  That said, I'm always interested in contract work but please know that this has zilch to do with my posts here.  I'm booked solid with coding hours these days but always love to take on challenging projects with bright people 

Why don't more people do it?

Is it just too complex?

Too forward thinking?

Or is it limited and clunky like dBase III dev was, so there are few developers that really can get into/behind it?

Truly it's one of the latest and greatest IMO.  Everyone claims to be "cloud" these days but few truly are (again, IMO).  The Force.com platform is a great example of a true cloud environment.

i was both completely serious and being a smart ass at the same time. (im like that...)

Word.

It is only something that recently i have started to even think of, and you bringing it up is coincidental and convenient timing.

Hate to wax serendipitous but what are the odds 

Seriously nutballs, let me know if you need advice on this and I'll help ya out.  Actually I just wanted to say "seriously nutballs."

[nutballs]

lol. its on my list now.

of course if you saw my list, you might want to followup with what decade you could expect questions to start coming in... damn clients and their work.

[isthisthingon]

of course if you saw my list, you might want to followup with what decade you could expect questions to start coming in... damn clients and their work.

If you own the business it sounds like a great problem to have.  Let me know if you want to do a brainstorm session sometime.  I'm out in Los Angeles and work entirely from home so I'm available for these things.  Sometimes good advice is all that's needed.

Good morning!   

[perkiset]

Actually I just wanted to say "seriously nutballs."

[serialnoob]

Wow, seriously prescriptive sales speech in any case! as in "difficut not to have a look!"   

[isthisthingon]

Code:

and an app store like the iTunes store to market, transact and distribute licensable plugins that you write. Correct?

I just wanted to clarify something about this.  Although the term plugins could be used it really doesn't accurately describe developing in the cloud since the environment itself is intended to transform into whatever you design it to be, with limitations.  Any transactional website hosted externally to you would be a similar type of "plugin" to their respective operating environments (Apache, IIS, etc.)

The real exciting part comes with composite applications.  Since it's truly cloud-based, the whole platform is intended to be seamlessly mashed-up with the rest of cloud world.  Last night I hit a milestone with the following integration (composite app) I'm coding for a large client.

Business need:
Software provider deals with very large data sets (TB+) and wants to tap into the Salesforce market.  Data must be synced between their cloud and the Force.com.  Force.com has only a subset of this data and new data pushed into SF or updates need to be reflected in their cloud.

Solution:
Initial data export from SF is a breeze to automate.  They call in via exposed web service and pull all Contacts and Leads that have no matching local ID in their cloud.  Ongoing synchronization from Force.com to them involves database triggers and Update transaction tables.  Trigger fires on Contact insert/update and Lead insert/update.  Trigger instantiates cross-cloud update class (less governor limits) that handles all relevant trigger states (Contact/Lead - after update, after insert).  Class uses HTTP Post (REST) callout with HTTP-XML preparation class (I called it HTTPManager) and sends updates over to their cloud.

I know what you're all thinking: "That's IMPOSSIBLE!  Even with the reduced governor limits of an Apex class versus an Apex trigger, Salesforce absolutely forbids callouts from anywhere if the initial entry point was a trigger."  Good eye! This used to be true.  However, now you can use the @Future Apex annotation to declare asynchronous callouts that fire when resources are available.  Launch it and expose a web service for results (SOAP only for in-bound currently.  HTTP Post and Get are in the works).

Final note.  Using metadata tools in Force.com and parsing metadata XML from the other company, I created a Visualforce page to map all standard and custom fields in Salesforce (Contact+Lead) to all standard and custom fields in the other cloud.  This is stored in Force.com and is the mapping template the trigger/class references in real-time.

I know I'm painfully about it.  Guess I'm just hoping someday some SW architect will try it out and say: "Dude, what's with the special-needs infomercial??  It's a stink cloud.  This platform bites and your new name is Beef Supreme "  Or equally as desirable: "Christ on a spit, this kicks unholy ass "

Happy Friday all

[perkiset]

@Future seems an appropriately evolved version of the standard, @TwoWeeks - of course the default time when things will be available in any tech project. I personally love @WhoKnows or @WGAF for my projects.

[nop_90]

Ok maybe a stupid question
In 100-200 words what exactly does this salesforce thing do ?

Like lets say I set up an online pharmacy.
Will sales force handling my billing ? CC transactions etc ?
And then magically affiliates will sign up and start promoting my viagra ?

All I see is some sort of cloud, with some sort of proprietary language called APEX.
The claim that development is 5x faster then C#/Java does not mean much.
Writing in assembler is about the same speed as C#/Java
Also the language is statically typed. Unless it is some wierd language like ocaml (it is statically typed but the compiler is very smart and it appears to be dynamically typed, also triva, in some cases ocaml code can be faster then C code because of the compiler), development will be 2-3 times slower then PHP,Python,perl,ruby etc.

All I see is a bunch of stupid flash presentations that claim magically my sales increase without increasing cost.
I am sorry

[serialnoob]

In 100-200 words what exactly does this salesforce thing do ?

Based on what some of you guys here can do, I think it's more a question of "who needs who?"
No, SF just want to know how you keep selling your stuff in the recession (so do their bio clients!)