We’ve been writing up a storm between Jeff and I and are targeting the end of this month for the end of our first draft. Don’t get too excited just yet (a little excitement is certainly allowed though) as after all this furious writing will (undoubtebly) come a lot of furious editing. Timelines put us at the publishers mid-Octoberish and then you’ll be able to get the Salesforce Handbook hot off the presses.
To whet your appetite here’s an excerpt from one of the draft chapters:
The Right Tool for the Right Job
Now that you’re equipped with an overview of how your cloud-based development network might be organized it is important that you learn:
- Which Force.com developer tools exist
- When it is appropriate to use specific tools
- How to use these tools
In this section I will discuss everything you need to create, test and deploy your Force.com code whilst being mindful of the above points. I will also touch on desktop applications or areas of Force.com that you’ll need when analyzing and monitoring your code, as well as the various support options available to you.
Certain tools overlap several development tasks, and some development tasks overlap each other. It’s for this reason that the first two points are so important when discussing development toolsets.
Developing Applications on the Force.com Platform
Creating code in any modern language is usually done through an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that offers a number of advantages over coding through a text-editor or something equally archaic. By the end of this section you’ll know which IDEs Force.com offers and when to use each of them.
Force.com App Builder Tools
Salesforce has created one of the best browser-based IDEs in the world and it delivers most, if not all, of the core functionality you’d expect from a desktop-based equivalent. There are two ways to access the IDE, each of which presents a slightly different experience.
The first way involves clicking Setup > Develop as a logged in user. From there you have access to each Force.com area of development, namely:
- Apex Classes
- Apex Triggers
- Components
- Pages
- S-Controls
Don’t forget to submit your favourite AppExchange Apps for a chance for them to appear the book. Ciao for now!
The Salesforce Handbook 
Contents looks great, also you can add tricky techniques which may be useful for developers which are not state forward.
Regards,
Shiva