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Discussion on: My Transition from .Net to Salesforce. My thoughts and the challenges so far.

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mbarbarelli profile image
mbarbarelli

Hi There, Chris. And now, here we are in late 2019. Almost 2020. What's your outlook on SFDC these days?

I'm a full-stack developer with a heavy NodeJS / ASP.NET MVC / Blockchain background. I'm considering a move in Salesforce myself; with a long-view of going for Technical Architect. At the same time, I don't want to completely abandon my "real developer" roots.

Your last comment indicated that you might be a little frustrated with the platform. Are you no longer enjoying working with it? Are you currently exercising your SFDC skills on the job?

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chris_bertrand profile image
Chris Bertrand

Hey Mike, Wow yeah it's been a while since I wrote this. After some time with it, I think SFDC development is a doubled edged sword. Javier's comments above still ring true, but Salesforce is still growing.

Lightning web components which super cede Lightning is a step in the right direction (Another FrontEnd JavaScript framework, but more proprietary), SFDX (The developer experience, i.e. Tools/CLI etc) is also getting better, the shift to VScode throughout and 2nd Generation packaging definitely simplify the framework. The problem is, I wouldn't class all these things as fully complete yet.

If moving to Salesforce for greenfield work you'll have a much better experience, but there are a lot of hoops to jump through in general. Quick to develop, but relatively arduous to release. If you need to interact with the CRM backend you have no choice, if that's where the data and customers are, then this is all necessary. I see a lot of people using it predominately as a backend though, using it as a database. This removes a lot of the benefits of this type of ecosystem.

It's fascinating to see how this is growing and changing and how they improve things. Salesforce developers are in high demand, and understanding another framework is always good in my opinion. Coming from the open source nature of blockchain development though, you may feel constricted as your options will be limited in contrast.

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mbarbarelli profile image
mbarbarelli

Thank you very much for your quick reply, Chris. Your feedback is insightful and invaluable. Wish you all the best. Hope your projects in-flight are going well.

BTW, strange to hear that some are using SFDC predominately as a backend, or even just as a database. Why not just use Oracle or SAP in that case?

Cheers!

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chris_bertrand profile image
Chris Bertrand

Thanks. By backend, I mean, not developing on the platform itself. A lot of people use Salesforce as their CRM of choice, and there's a big market for integration. If that's the case, and you don't want to write "Salesforce" code you can simply read and write via API's and then use whatever platforms you want. It works, but as I said, I don't think it's the best use case for the system.