The new new thing

The history of personal computers (or hobbyist computers, or microcomputers) has a few events that define new technologies which grant non-professionals (otherwise known as amateurs) the power to develop new, cutting edge applications. Such events are followed by a plethora of poorly-written, hard-to-maintain, and mediocre quality applications.

Previous enabling tools were Microsoft BASIC, dBase II, and Microsoft Visual Basic. Each of these packages "made programming easy". Consequently, lots of people created applications and unleashed them upon the world.

Microsoft BASIC is on the list due to its ease-of-use and its pervasiveness. In 1979, every computer for sale included a version of Microsoft BASIC (with the possible exception of the TRS-80 model II and the Heathkit H-8, H-11, and H-89 computers). Microsoft BASIC made lots of applications possible, and made it possible for just about anyone to create an application. And they did, and many of those applications that were poorly written impossible to maintain.

dBase II from Aston-Tate allowed the average Joe to create database applications, something possible in Microsoft BASIC only with lots of study and practice. dBase II used high-level commands to manipulate data, and lots of people wrote dBase II apps. The apps were poorly written and hard to maintain.

Microsoft's Visual Basic surpassed the earlier "MBASIC" and dBase II in popularity. It let anyone write apps for Windows. It was much easier than Microsoft's other Windows development tool, Visual C++. Microsoft scored a double win here, as apps in both Visual Basic and Visual C++ were poorly written and hard to maintain.

Languages and development environments since then have been designed for professional programmers and used by professional programmers. The "average Joe" does not pick up Perl and create apps.

The tide has shifted again, and now there is a new development tool, a new "new thing", that lets average people (that is, non-programmers) develop applications. It's called "salesforce.com".

salesforce.com is a cloud-based application platform that can build data-intensive applications. The name is somewhat deceptive, as the applications are not limited to sales. they can be anything, although the model leads one to the traditional view of a database with master/child relationships and transaction updates to a master file. I would not use it to create a word proccessor, a compiler, or a social network.

The important aspects are ease-of-use and availability. salesforce.com has both, with a simple, GUI-based development environment (and a web-based one at that!) and free access for individuals to experiment. The company even offers the "App Exchange", a place to sell (or give away) apps for the salesforce.com platform.

Be prepared for a lot of salesforce.com applications, many written by amateurs and poorly designed.