What if I told you that no matter what your educational or professional background is, you could build a cloud app today? Even a couple years ago this may have seemed unrealistic; however, just like the shift in technology can change on the drop of a pin, so can the makers who produce it.

By asking the right questions, thinking about the problems you're trying to solve, and having the desire to solve them, you can be a cloud application builder. While code is definitely an integral part of software development, it's not required for you to create cloud apps. You can now point and click your way to effective business solutions; all you need to figure out is the path necessary to get you there.

Drag-and-drop cloud database building.  Standard user interfaces. Point-and-click control over which users can see and edit your data. Automation of workflows, approvals, and other actions with your data. Private and secure social collaboration. The ability make it mobile by checking one box … All of these complex software capabilities and more can be utilized without any code.

Force.com, the core platform for Salesforce.com's business apps, is designed to help you focus on how to meet the requirements for building out your own business solutions rather than get bogged down on how to execute your ideas or the resources necessary to implement them. With a few configurations set up for your organization, Force.com will handle all of the back-end logistics of how things happen so that you don’t have to.

Cloud App Development Learning Paths

Check out  the new topic page for codeless cloud application development, where you can find learning tools to help you get started building. There are already some resources there to start building today, but more videos, tutorials, and articles will be added soon in the upcoming weeks to give you the resources you need to succeed.

     How do you prefer to learn?

By Doing? Check out our Quick Tutorials, similar to the Force.com workbooks, except they are modular. Build out bite-sized pieces of a cloud application to learn individual concepts.

By Reading? Read this series of wiki articles about understanding cloud application development. It dissects the individual parts of the development process and links to deeper dives on the concepts as well... like Cliff's Notes for cloud app development!

By Watching? Finally, if you would like to see this app building process come to life in less than an hour, please check out my webinar with Shannon Hale, the Product Manager of Declarative Apps, on building codeless cloud apps. We work through an example of building an app to solve our business requirements, explain concepts while simultaneously building them out, and answer questions from the viewers at the end.

Go Forth and Develop Cloud Apps

If you had any doubt about your abilities to be an application developer, reconsider the possibilities. Not only are the tools there to help you execute your ideas, but now there is also a more centralized learning forum to help enable you on your journey. You can be the solution to your business problems, all you need to do is ask the right questions.