Force.com development platform
1. Salesforce provides two type of licenses – Salesforce and Salesforce
platform. Salesforce license allows access to online CRM product.
2. Force.com platform uses the standard Model View Controller design
pattern. The MVC pattern is implemented as below in Force.com platform.
Pattern Force.com implementation
Model Object (custom or standard)
View VisualForce pages
Controller Logic written in Apex that controls navigation
3. The Create menu is used to provide the declarative framework of
Force.com platform. The Develop menu is used to provide the
programmable framework.
4. Page Builder is used to generate user interface for CRUD (Create, Read,
Update, Delete) operations of objects. This user interface is created
automatically by Salesforce and can be used to create reasonably complex
applications withot writing VisualForce or Apex code.
5. Salesforce allows data types of existing fields to be changed, however this
may lead to loss of data.
6. Page Layout supports a drag-and-drop interface to develop screens. It
allows addition of space and sections, and moving of fields across the
screen. It supports making a field read-only or required.
7. A deleted record is stored in recycle bin with an expiry date. Deleted
records can be recovered for upto 45 days.
8. SOQL stands for Salesforce Object Query Language. SOQL is used for
performing queryies on objects.
9. SOSL stands for Salesforce Object Search Language. SOSL is used for
performing full text search.
10. Salesforce provides sandboxes that may be used for development and
testing. Full Copy Sandbox allows copies of metadata/configuration along
with all the application data to be copied from production to a sandbox
environment. The sandbox can then be used for testing and simulating
reported problems. Record ids in production and full copy sandbox are also
same.
Configuration only sandbox and Developer sandbox also allow copying of
metadata and configuration, but not copying of application data. However
there is a size limit of 500MB and 2MB respectively in these sandboxes.
Developer edition license does not allow copying of configuration from
production developer environment.
