What is APEX in salesforce With use case and features.

Today we are gonna start with the development part. We are now starting with the apex basics.  How to code in Salesforce using apex visualforce and lightning. So let's begin.

I'm gonna talk about four points first one apex basics in this topic I'm gonna discuss that what exactly apex is and how to write it and where it gets executed how it gets saved how it gets compiled and all the different things related to it.Then the second point is flows of action in which I'm gonna tell you that how developer writes a code how it gets saved to the server and how it gets compiled and executed and all the related things with it. Then the third point is to be ready to use apex like when to code and when not to code. I'm going to discuss those points because it's necessary. Salesforce administrators are the people who are using pertinent tools to develop the applications on salesforce , so when there is a need to choose apex over the point and click tools I'm gonna explain that. After that I'm gonna discuss the fourth point is that what are the features that are not supported by apex or what things we cannot do using apex and then the last one some features about apex so let's start. 

Apex is basically a strongly typed object-oriented programming language which is used to develop applications on top of the Salesforce platform. Using apex you can write the custom business logic on top of the Salesforce platform which can be executed on different occasions like on a button click or if you want some custom code to be executed, you can use apex. One point that you need to consider with apex or while programming in apex is that apex is saved,compiled and executed on the force.com platform or on the servers of the force.com platform not on the client system or on the client device that's your laptop or your computer, simply means that you do not need to install any development kit compiler or on your client system. All you need is a browser and an internet connection to write the apex code.

Let's start with the flows of action that are involved when it comes to apex. In apex the flows of action are divided into two parts. The first one developer action is for the developer and the second one is user action which is for the end user or the business user developer action. Developer writes an apex class or an apex code into his computer or laptop then the apex class or apex code goes through the internet to the force.com platform servers and there are two components one is the apex compiler and the other one is an apex at runtime. So an apex compiler compiles that apex class of the apex code and stores that compiled epics into the data storage and while the labels compiler is compiling the code if there is any error then it returns that error to the developer. The code will never get saved until there are errors in that particular code. As a compiled apex on the server side you have the force.com platform which has an application server and the second thing is data storage and on the client side all we need is a browser and an internet connection.

Now let's talk about the second flow of action that is end user action. In end user action it is basically for the end users or the business users who were using that particular application or executing that particular apex class or apex pool. So what happens is that whenever they invoke a particular apex, a request goes to the force.com platforms application server which includes two things: an apex compiler and the second thing is apex run time. So the request goes to the apex run time it fetches the compiled data from the data storage and it executes it on the force.com platform and returns the result back to the end user. So these are basically the flow of actions that are involved with apex.

Now let's talk about the third topic. Basically when to use apex, the first and important requirement occurs when you want to do Automation that cannot be implemented using workflows or process builders. In that case you have to write in apex code or basically an apex trigger. The second thing is that you need to write down a apex whenever you need to implement complex validation rules. For an example, you want to validate that the account that you're creating does not have an email or phone number similar to any of the accounts that you have available. So in that case you cannot implement this validation rule using the click validation rules. You have to implement this validation using Apex triggers that are basically in Apex code. The third situation in which you need to use apex is a web service like whenever you want to create web services to interact with external applications, we need to use apex or if you want to create email services then also we need to write apex code. The fourth thing whenever you want to do certain transactions and you want to control those transactions using some save points and rollbacks, we can use apex but always make sure that if a certain functionality is implementable using the point-and-click tools or the declarative approaches you should go with that. Never write an apex class or an apex code for the thing that you can do with the point-and-click tool. Only write the apex code or the apex class when a certain functionality can not be implemented using the content click tools because there are multiple reasons involved with it like apex is not available in professional edition, governor limits code is not maintainable as compared to the point a click tools or declarative approaches and many more.

Now let's quickly come to the point, in which conditions you cannot use apex. so the first thing that we cannot do using apex is that we can not show anything literally anything on the UI or on the user interface using apex except the error message of course. The second one, the most important point that you need to consider is that using apex we really cannot change any Salesforce functionality. We can only add new functionalities and stop the execution of the existing functionality on particular actions but we cannot change the standard Salesforce functionality. Third thing apex cannot be used to create a temporary file. So that means you do not have to worry about file handling anymore. Fourth thing you cannot create multiple threads using Salesforce or using Apex in Salesforce. Threading is not allowed. So again you do not have to worry about multiple threading.

Now let's begin with the fourth point. some features of Apex: 

1.) The first one is, apex is case insensitive. Yes it is really case insensitive.

2.) second point it upgrades automatically. You do not have to worry about upgrading your  development kit or your compiler or your interpreter. It automatically upgrades.

3.) The third thing is that it is object oriented programming language and it has Java or C sharp like syntax. So it's very very beneficial for all of you guys who have a background of Java or C sharp.

4.) Fourth and probably the best feature Salesforce supports is that it is very easy to test, because it provides built-in support for all functionalities to write and execute the test cases.

5.) Fifth it runs on a multi-tenant environment which is an advantage as well as a drawback  advantage because you do not have to worry about your own infrastructure and maintaining  your own infrastructure and drawback because there are no limits involved, so that you do not monopolize the resources of the server.

6.) Sixth and the last point is the version. yes apex class or apex code is version that means the code saves with a particular version of apex and it executes that particular version only.

And that's all about the apex basics and fundamentals that you need to know.

Thanks.

Lovesalesforceyes.