Getting Started with Force.com Development

This guide gives you quick pointers to easily start learning force.com development process. Its hosted on github, so that community can easily add more value to it.

Getting familiar with the platform

• Sign up for Developer Account : Join Developer Force to get your free Developer Edition (DE) environment and access to key resources. [Signup link] (http://developer.force.com/join)
• Force.com Fundamentals : Start reading this book to familiarize yourself with the platform in general. [Read HTML version of this book] (http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/fundamentals/index.htm)
• Force.com Workbook : Pick up a work book on this page for more real life tutorials and apps. [Link to workbook] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Forcedotcomworkbook)
• Quick Video from Dreamforce sessions : A quick 1 hour video to get you familiar with some aspects. [Link to video] (http://developer.force.com/df_session?id=a0J300000009weGEAQ)
• iTunes Podcasts : Watch these 401/501 and other postcast on iTunes, this will help you prepare starting from 401 to advanced. Please note these podcasts are bit old, so some features are changed as per recent releases, but they are still good to give some ground. [Link to podcasts] (http://itunes.apple.com/in/podcast/salesforce.com-training-certification/id325668840)

Troubleshooting and queries

You might be facing some issues, or having some questions. Best way to sort out is talk to your peers, still the problem is not solved. Here are few quick ways

• Force.com Discussion boards : Rich variety of boards are available to discuss almost anything about platform. Locate the correct board [here] (http://boards.developerforce.com/sforce/?category.id=developers).
• Tweet : Force.com community is pretty active on Twitter, tweet your question with hash #askforce
• StackOverFlow : If you are already an active user and like stackoverflow, many community members are pretty active out there. Make sure you post your questions with right tags like apex, visualforce and salesforce.

Staying updated about Force.com platform

Force.com platform comes with something cool 3 times a year, apart from that force.com dev community is pretty vibrant in terms of blogs and open source projects. Here are few ways to stay tuned to all these updates.

• Watch opensource action : Keep an eye on [CodeShare] (http://developer.force.com/codeshare) and [Github] (https://github.com/search?type=Repositories&language=&q=salesforce&repo=&langOverride=&x=19&y=21&start_value=1)
• Follow important blogs : No need to say why this is important. My own Google reader subscription list is uploaded to this git hub repository. So please import [this] (https://gist.github.com/abhinavguptas/8330797#file-blogs-to-follow-opml) xml in Google reader to get an big dose of happenings :)
• Twitter : Here are few Twitter lists that make it simple to quickly connect with force.com team, evangelists and MVPs.
• [Force.com Developer relations team] (https://twitter.com/#!/forcedotcom/developer-relations/members)
• [Force.com Developer evangelists] (https://twitter.com/#!/forcedotcom/developer-evangelists/members)
• [Force.com MVPs] (https://twitter.com/#!/MikeGerholdt/salesforce-mvp/members)

Taking deep dive (Level up time, leave the "n00b" tag)

• Force.com Technical Library : This page is a great starting point to explore alomost any technical topic about force.com. It gives hyperlinks to documentation of various force.com features. [View Technical Library] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Wiki)
• Documentation : Pick various topics available here as per requirements. This page is really important to bookmark and will serve assistance on most of the force.com topics. [View Documentation] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Documentation)
• Cheat sheets : We all love cheatsheets, many cheatsheets about different areas are available [here] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Documentation#Developer_Cheat_Sheets)

Tools and Toolkits

Tools to make you more productive with force.com platform. Many tools and toolkits are available for different task. To see full list, please click [here] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/Tools). Here are few key tools, that you might need to start with :

IDE's

• Force.com IDE or Plugin for Eclipse : One should at least setup Eclipse IDE with force.com plugin to be more productive with the platform. To setup and understand more about IDE, please [click here] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Force.com_IDE)
• Sublime Text-based IDE : More details [here] (https://github.com/joeferraro/MavensMate-SublimeText)
• TextMate-based IDE (for Mac OS) : Mavens team has done a great job in developing an IDE on top of popular TextMate editor for Mac. More details [here] (https://github.com/joeferraro/MavensMate)
• BrainEngine : Provides IDE that provides standard developer tools, source control and team collaboration feature. More details available [here] (http://www.brainengine.net/)

Schema browsers

These browsers allow you to quickly scan an org’s schema, plus a few other admin tasks. Its faster many times then eclipse or other IDE, as we don’t need to download, install and checkout anything.

• Force.com Explorer : Adobe AIR based cross platform application. Download from [here] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/ForceExplorer)

Workbench

This powerful, web-based suite of tools designed for adminstrators and developers to interact with Salesforce.com organizations via the Force.com APIs. Workbench includes robust support for the Force.com Partner, Bulk, Rest, Streaming, Metadata, and Apex APIs that allows users to describe, query, manipulate, and migrate both data and metadata in Salesforce.com organizations directly in their web browser with a simple and intuitive user interface. More details [here] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/Workbench)

Community developed tools

• Force.com utility belt : This is handy chrome plugin that helps you quickly search for docs, and do other stuff like 15 to 18 digit ID conversion. More details [here] (http://techblog.appirio.com/2010/08/forcecom-utility-belt-google-chrome.html)

Recommended Reading (Advanced, roadmap to become a PRO !)

• [Understand Force.com platform security] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/An_Overview_of_Force.com_Security)
• [Language Security Considerations] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Apex_and_Visualforce_Security_Tips)
• [Visual force View State Handling] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/An_Introduction_to_Visualforce_View_State)
• [Cookbook for solutions] (http://developer.force.com/cookbook)
• Best practices
• [Apex Trigger/Code] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Apex_Code_Best_Practices)
• [Sites] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Force.com_Sites_Best_Practices)
• [Salesforce 2 Salesforce] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Best_Practices_for_Salesforce_to_Salesforce)
• [Server Endpoints] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Best_Practices_When_Referencing_Server_Endpoints)
• Force.com Security : Please don't ignore this, if you will it will come back to you as nightmare :)
• [Home page for all the relevant links for security] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Security)
• [Testing CRUD FLS] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Testing_CRUD_and_FLS_Enforcement)
• [Enforcing CRUD & FLS] (http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Enforcing_CRUD_and_FLS)
• [Writing secure code on Force.com platform] (http://developer.force.com/dreamforce/10/session/Writing-Secure-Code-on-the-Force-com-Platform)
• [Security Quiz] (http://security.force.com/platformquiz)

Other getting started guides

• [Getting started: the force.com community - From Salesforce] (http://developer.force.com/gettingstartedcommunity)
• [Getting started: Force.com for Developers - From Salesforce] (http://developer.force.com/gettingstarteddevelopers)
• [Start Developing with Salesforce.com — Today! - From Jeff Douglas] (http://blog.jeffdouglas.com/2009/04/08/start-developing-with-salesforcecom-today/)