Practical Salesforce Architecture

Chapter 8. Programming and Customization

This chapter covers programming and customization of Salesforce. Many readers will be familiar with the concepts discussed here, because these tools are already present in their organization/operations. These readers may be seeking more knowledge about how they combine and how they are different.

It should not be assumed that you will have to use code to customize the platform. You might eventually, but in order to quickly take advantage of all the new features and feature upgrades, you should strive to use as many of them “out of the box” as possible. You shouldn’t start customizing unless you’re sure there isn’t an existing prebuilt feature that you can leverage (including newly released features). Your solution engineers should be able to meet the vast majority of your incoming needs without code. The flexible and modern programming features that have been added to the platform can be almost too enticing, but you’ll reap long-term benefits by reducing your customizations and leaning into the art of the possible within the existing platform functions, without extending into code.

The programming and customization landscape of Salesforce crystalizes around two primary concepts: multitenant and declarative versus custom strategies. The multitenant constraints color a lot of the customization technologies in an effort to protect the shared customer/user resources. In order to enable maximum functionality without risking performance, Salesforce ...