At the first point, you need to understand that Salesforce DX isn't a product. On the other hand, it is another program with various i...
At the first point, you need to understand that Salesforce DX isn't a product. On the other hand, it is another program with various initiatives, which cover a fair set of business tools which include but not limited to more effective developmental approach, continuous integration, ongoing release management, and a better package of the Force applications.
Salesforce DX doesn’t come up as a monolithic solution to the existing development model, which offers an all or nothing developmental approach. The users can choose among the options and leverage the best of certain parts of the Salesforce DX solutions while leaving off other parts as inapplicable. Salesforce DX is compatible with other tools and solutions which are now available in the marketplace and developers are comfortable with.
About Salesforce DX
Salesforce DX is an innovative initiative to improve the productivity of app developers and offers them a provision to develop with the same tools they are familiar with. Say, for example; you can compare Salesforce DX with Microsoft's toolsets like Team Foundation Server or Visual Studio, which can provide comprehensive business solutions.
In order to grow further and optimally monetize Salesforce platform, Salesforce DX offers an updated platform for the conventional developers to build more code-intensive and function-rich applications. Salesforce DX works on open-source technology in order to help the developer’s transition effectively from other technology platforms. DX is built around a very strong CLI and open APIs, which offers more flexibility to integrate a range of third-party tools.
Integration with Salesforce DX
Service providers are very excited to extend the support to the clients after the launch of the Salesforce DX in 2018. As Salesforce DX puts for the industry best practices in application development, it makes it more comfortable and effective for the third-party app development services to do it at their best.
Scratch Orgs vs. Sandboxes
Most of the developers who are now newly on to the Salesforce platform are conventionally aware of the Sandboxes, but Salesforce approach to it a bit innovative in terms of Scratch Orgs. It is important for such developers to know the difference between Sandbox and Scratch Org and how to use them effectively together.
One thing to consider is that Scratch Orgs are not to fully replace the Sandboxes, but it can improve the effectiveness of using Sandboxes if managed properly. Scratch org is a disposable and source-driven development platform for the deployment of code and metadata for DX developers. The major difference between these two is that the Scratch Orgs are source driven whereas Sandboxes are production copies.
Sandboxes are permanent whereas Scratch orgs are temporary and don't actually holds any production data. So, Scratch orgs can be effectively deployed to complement the Sandboxes. As being useful temporary deployments, we can use them typically for peer review as a way to enhance the test coverage and do test automation. Sandboxes remain mandatory for staging, licensing, and performance testing, etc.
Salesforce DX Principles
The key Salesforce principles aligned with the third-party platforms:
Source-driven Developmental Approach:
Providers like Flosum were always embracing this as the most advisable principle and included it as a part of their solutions. As the size of the development team grows and the velocity of application development increases, version control is a highly very imperative approach to make sure that the developers don’t overwrite the code of others. Primary version control will allow better collaboration of the team and increased visibility between the members of the team. This will keep the Sandboxes in better synchronization and also ensure more productivity by each developer. For this purpose, development teams can leverage the native VCS of providers or use the Git extension.
Rapid Testing and Continuous Development:
The primary nature of Salesforce development platform enables the individual developers, testers, and admins to quickly build, test, and release applications. Even though providers support agile and waterfall development methodologies, it is recommended that the customers need to follow the agile best practices on Salesforce DX to cut down the need for testing and the time take for application development times. Companies offer out-of-the-box testing features in order to ensure that the code is tested and methodologies like Selenium testing ensures that the developers conduct regression and smoke testing etc.
Open and Classic Developer Experience:
Companies support continuous integration of different open-source solutions like Git open distributed VCS and Jenkins etc. for continuous integration and instant deployment. The additional tools to support include Eclipse, Atom, MavensMate, and a lot more.
Notable Changes to Conventional Salesforce Platform
Salesforce uses its own technology tools to delivery different solutions. Say, for example; Salesforce is using its own APIs as tooling and metadata APIs which are now used by Salesforce partners to deploy effectively in the Salesforce ecosystem.
With such programs, Salesforce has improved a lot in terms of technology. Latest Salesforce promises improved ways through which the tooling and metadata APIs work. It will help all the partners to perform better. As the foundation package improves, the entire suite will provide better user experience and ensure end-user usability.
As discussed above, many new integrations are made available, but the usages of such solutions are largely dependent on the Salesforce DX. As of late, Salesforce DX may not support all these components as such, and it is also a fact that many of these are not packageable. No doubt that Salesforce DX helps to modernize the software development paradigm by allowing faster and easier innovation. This provides Salesforce developers a unique opportunity to leverage the new set of tools and an integrated platform which will allow the teams to work collaboratively to deliver continuously.
Salesforce DX is a wonderful cloud platform which constantly strives to improve the developer experience. In fact, to leverage it to the fullest, developers need to use the right package of collaborative tools. These tools are necessary to ensure cloud governance and security. As this platform is constantly evolving, we can expect all the shortfalls of Salesforce DX to be taken care of well in the upcoming versions.
Salesforce DX doesn’t come up as a monolithic solution to the existing development model, which offers an all or nothing developmental approach. The users can choose among the options and leverage the best of certain parts of the Salesforce DX solutions while leaving off other parts as inapplicable. Salesforce DX is compatible with other tools and solutions which are now available in the marketplace and developers are comfortable with.
About Salesforce DX
Salesforce DX is an innovative initiative to improve the productivity of app developers and offers them a provision to develop with the same tools they are familiar with. Say, for example; you can compare Salesforce DX with Microsoft's toolsets like Team Foundation Server or Visual Studio, which can provide comprehensive business solutions.
In order to grow further and optimally monetize Salesforce platform, Salesforce DX offers an updated platform for the conventional developers to build more code-intensive and function-rich applications. Salesforce DX works on open-source technology in order to help the developer’s transition effectively from other technology platforms. DX is built around a very strong CLI and open APIs, which offers more flexibility to integrate a range of third-party tools.
Integration with Salesforce DX
Service providers are very excited to extend the support to the clients after the launch of the Salesforce DX in 2018. As Salesforce DX puts for the industry best practices in application development, it makes it more comfortable and effective for the third-party app development services to do it at their best.
Scratch Orgs vs. Sandboxes
Most of the developers who are now newly on to the Salesforce platform are conventionally aware of the Sandboxes, but Salesforce approach to it a bit innovative in terms of Scratch Orgs. It is important for such developers to know the difference between Sandbox and Scratch Org and how to use them effectively together.
One thing to consider is that Scratch Orgs are not to fully replace the Sandboxes, but it can improve the effectiveness of using Sandboxes if managed properly. Scratch org is a disposable and source-driven development platform for the deployment of code and metadata for DX developers. The major difference between these two is that the Scratch Orgs are source driven whereas Sandboxes are production copies.
Sandboxes are permanent whereas Scratch orgs are temporary and don't actually holds any production data. So, Scratch orgs can be effectively deployed to complement the Sandboxes. As being useful temporary deployments, we can use them typically for peer review as a way to enhance the test coverage and do test automation. Sandboxes remain mandatory for staging, licensing, and performance testing, etc.
Salesforce DX Principles
The key Salesforce principles aligned with the third-party platforms:
Source-driven Developmental Approach:
Providers like Flosum were always embracing this as the most advisable principle and included it as a part of their solutions. As the size of the development team grows and the velocity of application development increases, version control is a highly very imperative approach to make sure that the developers don’t overwrite the code of others. Primary version control will allow better collaboration of the team and increased visibility between the members of the team. This will keep the Sandboxes in better synchronization and also ensure more productivity by each developer. For this purpose, development teams can leverage the native VCS of providers or use the Git extension.
Rapid Testing and Continuous Development:
The primary nature of Salesforce development platform enables the individual developers, testers, and admins to quickly build, test, and release applications. Even though providers support agile and waterfall development methodologies, it is recommended that the customers need to follow the agile best practices on Salesforce DX to cut down the need for testing and the time take for application development times. Companies offer out-of-the-box testing features in order to ensure that the code is tested and methodologies like Selenium testing ensures that the developers conduct regression and smoke testing etc.
Open and Classic Developer Experience:
Companies support continuous integration of different open-source solutions like Git open distributed VCS and Jenkins etc. for continuous integration and instant deployment. The additional tools to support include Eclipse, Atom, MavensMate, and a lot more.
Notable Changes to Conventional Salesforce Platform
Salesforce uses its own technology tools to delivery different solutions. Say, for example; Salesforce is using its own APIs as tooling and metadata APIs which are now used by Salesforce partners to deploy effectively in the Salesforce ecosystem.
With such programs, Salesforce has improved a lot in terms of technology. Latest Salesforce promises improved ways through which the tooling and metadata APIs work. It will help all the partners to perform better. As the foundation package improves, the entire suite will provide better user experience and ensure end-user usability.
As discussed above, many new integrations are made available, but the usages of such solutions are largely dependent on the Salesforce DX. As of late, Salesforce DX may not support all these components as such, and it is also a fact that many of these are not packageable. No doubt that Salesforce DX helps to modernize the software development paradigm by allowing faster and easier innovation. This provides Salesforce developers a unique opportunity to leverage the new set of tools and an integrated platform which will allow the teams to work collaboratively to deliver continuously.
Salesforce DX is a wonderful cloud platform which constantly strives to improve the developer experience. In fact, to leverage it to the fullest, developers need to use the right package of collaborative tools. These tools are necessary to ensure cloud governance and security. As this platform is constantly evolving, we can expect all the shortfalls of Salesforce DX to be taken care of well in the upcoming versions.
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