Articles - Page 3 of 13

How to Add Third Party JavaScript Libraries to Salesforce Lightning

October 9, 2017Brian ClineProgramming, Salesforcelightning third party modules, salesforce import external javascript, Salesforce Lightning, salesforce static resources

It’s not secret that Salesforce Lightning is a huge shift away from Visualforce and Apex, I feel like I’ve had to relearn years of development and lean heavily on my javascript development experienced. If you aren’t sure what Salesforce Lightning is or aren’t sure why it’s a huge shift, you need to read my blog article called what is salesforce lightning.

What is a Third Party Library

Third party libraries allow developers to build quickly and take advantage of other people’s abstractions to avoid having to spend time working around browser issues or etc. In JavaScript, third party libraries and code reuse are all of the rage. A third party library is basically anything your team personally write and require for your project to work. …

How to Adapt to Serverless Computing

October 6, 2017Brian Cline1 CommentProgrammingadopting to serverless computing, Serverless, serverless architecture, Serverless Computing, serverless testing

Serverless computing is a really new and very trans formative change that allow companies to grow and scale their businesses very quickly. Serverless computing done correctly has the potential to dramatically increase development velocity, and reduce costs. In my blog post, What is Serverless Computing I covered what it is and some of the vendors that are available.

Adopting serverless computing makes a lot of sense for companies, but there are steps that you need to do before you can begin moving to serverless technologies. One of the first things to make sure you and your team understand is that serverless computing is primarily event driven and functional programming has the potential to make things a lot easier.…

What is a Self Invoking Function

October 5, 2017Brian ClineJavaScript, Programminganonymous functions, javascript, self invoking function

In JavaScript, it’s common to hear lots of strange terminology without a lot of description around what it is or what it does. I want to try and demystify what a self invoking function is and why you should consider them and the times when maybe you shouldn’t consider them.…

What is Serverless Computing

October 4, 2017Brian Cline1 CommentProgrammingauth0 webtaks, aws lambda, Serverless Computing, serverless frameworks

In the ten years or so that I have been programming professionally, there’s been significant changes to the way we did things whether it be the way we developed software, the way we managed software, or the environments we used to execute our code. Over time, these changes have become increasingly more and more dramatic to the point where it’s now possible to run a company and maintain almost no actual servers.

For the last 18 months or so, I have been working with “serverless computing” which is an incredibly encompassing buzzword for a lot of different technologies and techniques.
Serverless computing is a very large break from the traditional way we developed software and deployed software to servers. Serverless computing is basically an architecture where code is stored and executed by a fully managed provider.…

Why JavaScript

October 3, 2017Brian Cline1 CommentCloud Computing, JavaScript, Programmingjavascript, javescript mobile apps, learning javascript, why javascript

In the earlier days of the web, there was a battle between two scripting languages VBScript and JavaScript. VBScript, thankfully, eventually died and JavaScript became the dominant language for making really easy to use and interactive websites.

In the years since, JavaScript has become more and more used. Backend code can be written in basically any language, even in JavaScript, but the client side will almost always require a developer with some JavaScript knowledge. Every industry has a lot of javascript and some are even rewriting core functionality to use more. Surprisingly, even large banks and credit card companies are beginning to use JavaScript or Node in big ways. PayPal has been rewriting very large parts of their code base to make it more scalable and usable.…

How to Use Reduce on JavaScript Arrays

October 2, 2017Brian ClineJavaScript, Programmingjavascript, javascript array reduce, javascript functional programming

In functional programming, being able to reduce is one of the fundamental concepts. Reduce is used to iterate through the values in an array and condense all of the values into a single value. Usually the value is a sum of all of the elements, but it could be used to decrement, multiply or even…

How to be a more Efficient Debugger

September 27, 2017Brian ClineProgrammingapex debugging, debugging, efficient debugging, how to become a more efficient debugger, Programming

For the last 10+ years or so, I’ve been programming professionally. Even with ten years of practice, I still am unable to write a bug free applications. In this blog post, I have put together some tips on how to be a more efficient debugger and how to actually resolve the issue. A lot of my bugs aren’t as obvious as they used to be, but they are definitely still there. In the book Code Complete, Uncle Bob Martin, suggests that every error is an opportunity to learn.…

Detecting Inactivity in JavaScript

September 26, 2017Brian ClineJavaScript, Programmingevents, javascript, javascript detecting mouse movement, javascript detecting user activity, javascript keyboard events, javascript mouse events

In a lot of web applications, it can be really useful to detect whether the user is still active or not. For example, when a user is no longer active it can make a lot of sense to automatically log the user out or remind them that they’re about to be logged out. …

How to merge Objects together in JavaScript

September 21, 2017Brian ClineJavaScript, Programmingjavascript, jQuery, merge objects

Merging objects together in JavaScript isn’t very difficult although there’s quite a few different ways that it can be done.

Note, I’m not covering deep cloning for the sake of simplicity although this can be easily done through most of these different methods.

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Book Review: Advanced Apex Programming

September 20, 2017Brian ClineBook Review, Programming, SalesforceAdvanced Apex Programming, book review advanced apex, book review dan appleman, Dan Appleman, Salesforce

It’s no secret to those that know me that I read a lot and spend a lot of time gathering knowledge and honing my craft. I believe I own and have read most of the books on apex and salesforce that are available right now. Advanced Apex Programming by Dan Appleman is definitely the most advanced book for programming on Salesforce and Force.com. …

How I stay informed of Salesforce Changes

September 19, 2017Brian Cline2 CommentsProgramming, SalesforceSalesforce, salesforce releases

Salesforce does three major releases per year which often include hundreds of changes whether they be bug fixes or new features. Staying on top of what is changing is very difficult as the company continues to expand and is consistently enhancing the platform.

As a professional it’s part of our jobs to stay current on what is available in Salesforce and what may change in the next year or few years. …

10 Awesome Podcasts for Developers

September 18, 2017Brian ClineProgrammingdeveloper podcasts, Podcasts

Podcasts are radio like shows that are freely distributed on the internet. A lot of the time they’re distributed through Apple iTunes, Stitcher or other Audio Apps. Podcasts around technology aren’t new – some of them are over ten years old and have over a thousand episodes.

The podcasts I’m mentioning usually cover development and new and exciting technologies. …

How to Choose An Apex Trigger Framework

May 5, 2017Brian ClineProgramming, SalesforceApex Trigger Frameworks, Apex Triggers, Salesforce, Salesforce Apex, salesforce trigger kill switch

If you have been programming on the Salesforce/Force.com platform for any amount of time I’m sure you have come into contact with Apex Triggers. If not, Apex Triggers are units of code that execute whenever a database operation occurs. I’ve put together a post about Before and After Triggers that you should read if you aren’t very familiar with how triggers work.

Apex Triggers can get complicated very fast if your company has a very customized Salesforce Org. Apex Trigger Frameworks are a way of offering generic functionality that structures code in a certain way. If you were to use a building metaphor we could say that a framework is the supporting structure of the building – it’s the steel or wood shell that supports the building. Trigger Frameworks are very good at enforcing trigger best practices.…

How to Improve as a Developer

May 4, 2017Brian Cline2 CommentsExperience, ProgrammingCareers, Programming, Start Programming Career

As a software developer, it’s really important to take time and improve your programming skills by learning new technologies and techniques. By constantly trying to improve as a developer there’s potential to become a highly sought after developer. …

How to get the URL Parameters in JavaScript

May 1, 2017Brian ClineJavaScript, Programmingjavascript, learning javascript

It’s no secret that JavaScript is now all around us, most html forms are using JavaScript for validation and of course there’s now JavaScript on the server. This post covers how to get the query string from the current page’s url.…

Introduction to Salesforce Approval Processes

April 25, 2017Brian ClineSalesforceApproval Processes, Salesforce

An approval process is process that is used to approve records going into Salesforce or being modified within Salesforce. Approval processes are commonly used in companies that are publicly traded or highly regulated. Having a knowledge of how setup Approval Processes in Salesforce and how to modify them is incredibly valuable if you plan to work in finance, or government.…

How to Clone an sObject in Salesforce

April 23, 2017Brian ClineProgramming, SalesforceDeep Clone, Salesforce, Salesforce Clone sObject

Salesforce supports basically two types of clones a clone and a deep clone. We’ll go over how to notice the difference later in this post and of course how to create both types. Of course, there will also be some example code on how to create both types of clones. …

How to Sync Quotes using Apex

April 18, 2017Brian ClineProgramming, SalesforceApex Sync Quotes, Sales Process, Salesforce

In Salesforce, quotes are a representation of prices that have been proposed to a customer for products or services. If you aren’t familiar with opportunities, quotes and products please review my post about Designing a Sales Process in Salesforce.

An opportunity may have lots of quotes associated to it but only one quote may be synced to an opportunity at a time. Quote syncing links a quote a specific opportunity which allows updates to update between the Opportunity and Quote. Basically, when an Opportunity is added or removed it can be removed from the list of Opportunity Products without having to write any code. Keep in mind that this means Opportunity Products will be automatically removed and readded. I have been confused a few times by this.…

How to Start a Career in Salesforce Development

April 17, 2017Brian ClineProgramming, SalesforceLearning Salesforce, Salesforce, Salesforce Careers

Salesforce is an incredibly popular product and has a pretty large following in the technical community. Salesforce Administrators, Business Analysts, Developers, and Architects are constantly being required. There’s a lot reasons to consider starting a career in Salesforce development.…

Apex Trigger Best Practices

April 16, 2017Brian ClineProgramming, SalesforceApex Trigger Frameworks, Apex Triggers, Salesforce, Salesforce Best Practices, Salesforce Triggers

Apex Triggers are very powerful and are easily one of the most important parts of Salesforce because they significantly impact all database operations (inserts, updates, deletes, etc. ) With this incredible power and flexibility there’s a lot of room for problems. In my career as a Salesforce developer, I’ve looked at hundreds of different apex triggers and realized there are a lot of points of failure with apex triggers. This post is a very high level list of best practices and why they are important for apex triggers.

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Brian Cline

Full Stack Developer & Technology Leader Living in Niagara Falls

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