Chapter 1. Apex Assumptions and Comparisons

Salesforce is the enterprise cloud computing leader. Its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications were designed from the ground up to use a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Their success revolutionized the technology sector and changed the way software is delivered. Powering their applications is the Salesforce1 Platform, which is a highly scalable, multitenant Platform as a Service (PaaS). This platform is not just for salesforce.com's applications but is available to anyone to build a custom SaaS application. The programming language used on the Salesforce1 Platform is called Apex, and this book will get you started developing with it.

Apex isn't your typical programming language, so this isn't your typical programming book. We assume you already have experience with some other object-oriented programming language and aren't interested in reading about the basic concepts again. Instead, we take a more practical approach and explain what you need to know to start coding right away. We don't waste your time with Hello World code samples, and instead we walk you through writing fully functional code that is useful and serves business purposes.