Apex for Humans and recently turned Zombies. Learning the Apex programming language as if it were a spoken language.

1. Apex for Humans (and recently turned zombies)
Kevin Poorman
Principal Architect
@CodeFriar
Hey, I know we just met, and I know this’ll sound
crazy but here’s my twitter: @codefriar, so follow
me maybe?

2. Kevin Poorman
Principle Architect.

3. Agenda
Our Goal: Ensure everyone has the capability to read and understand Apex.
• A note on the philosophy of language
• Grammar school
• Diagram all the things!
• There will be a quiz

4. Metaphors we live by
A quick recap of vocabulary from third grade
• Metaphors are statements of comparison
between two objects that have a
non-logical, or non-obvious similarity.
• Similes are like Metaphors, but they use
‘Like’, or ‘As’ to make the comparison.
(see what I did there?)

5. It's language for everybody, there is no difference!
Language, regardless of it's primary usage
for human or computer communication;
utilizes metaphor to help assign
meaning to objects and actions.

6. So why do we call them programming languages?
• Because they utilize metaphor to help assign meaning.
• In addition to the use of metaphor, computer languages have the following traits as
well:
– Grammar
– Dialect
– Idioms
– Vocabulary

7. Grammar is Hard. Lets go to the Expo floor.
The grammar, or “syntax” of a language’s written form is the first hurdle to learning
any language.
• It’s also the easiest thing to learn about
a language. We pick it up, just by using
the language!
• That said …

8. Why is it hard?
• Grammar has subtle, often physically hard
to see marks.
• Consider:
– Let’s eat Grandma!
– Let’s eat, Grandma!
The single most likely cause of an extinction-event
level robot rising is a software grammar bug. – me.

9. Diagraming all the code!
Or: Learn you some apex grammar for great good!

10. Ground Rules
• Apex’s grammar says that complete thoughts are
ended with a semi-colon rather than a period
– We call complete thoughts “statements”
– Incomplete thoughts are “expressions”
• Additionally, Apex’s grammar dictates that
paragraphs, are grouped by { and } rather than
indentation and line breaks.
– Rarely are the {} on the same line.
• Most importantly: You are a Salesforce
Developer.

11. Ground Rules
• Variables
– Proper Names
• Types. Literally the hardest part of this.
– Apex is strongly typed, which is zombie speak for saying
that it’s a rather dumb language that demands you tell it
what kind of variable you’re creating.
– All Standard Objects are types
– All Custom Objects are types (Zombie__c)
– Built in types for Integer, String, Boolean etc.
– Type_name variable_name …
– Variable_name = (type_name) …

12. Ground Rules
• Methods
– “Last year at Dreamforce …”
– Also typed. You have to specify what kind of data the
method is going to return.
• Keywords / Reserved Words.
– Kind of like curse words, regardless of the language you
have to learn what you can and can’t say.
– abstract, break, catch, class, continue, do, else, enum, extends, false,
final, finally, for, global, if, implements, instanceOf, interface, new, null,
override, private, protected, public, return, static, super, testmethod, this,
throw, transient, trigger, true, try, webService, while, 'with sharing',
'without sharing' and virtual.

13. Ground Rules – last one I promise
• Sometimes we have complex types that only a
compiler could love.
– List<type_name> i.e.: List<Account>
– Set<type_name> i.e.: Set<Contact>
– Map<Set_type_name,List_Type_name> i.e.:
Map<Id,Zombie__c>
– Think about a roll of crackers.
Tasty tasty brainz crackers.

14. Now for the Quiz(es)
This is the interactive part, don’t make me call on you third person from the left in row
5.

15. Diagraming some Code
1. Type listType = Type.forName('List<' + objType + '>');
2. if (listType == null) {
3. return makeError('The requested resource does not exist',
'NOT_FOUND');
4. }
This code snippet has Statements, one Expression and one Paragraph. Can you
find them?
For 10,000 internet points* What line contains the creation of a variable and what’s
its type?
*redeemable only on the third Tuesday of the 5th month after the first blue moon for funny-cat-photos

16. Diagraming some Code
1. Zombie__c mattyb = Type.forName('List<‘Zombie__c’>');
2. Id objId = (id) ‘001abc1234LAKFR’;
3. String awesomeSauce = ‘Awesome Sauce’;
4. Account ZombieAccount = new Account();
For another 10,000 internet points, which of these has the type …

17. Diagraming some Code
1. Public Static Country__c getCountry() {
2. Integer i = TestUtils.getRandomNumber(10000);
3. return new Country__c(Name = 'Test Country' + i,
4. Sub_Region__c = 'Test Region’+ i,
5. Region__c = 'Test Location' + i,
6. English_Speaking__c = 'Yes');
7. }

18. Questions & Answers.