If there’s any truth to the idea that every company is a software company, then perhaps every company employee needs to learn how to create software. Or at least that’s what Salesforce.com, Inc., seems to believe.

The company made a major announcement around the theme of ‘citizen developers’ earlier this week at its TrailheaDX developer conference in San Francisco, releasing a bunch of tools it believes will help regular employees to build business apps without the assistance of a programmer. While programmers will still play a crucial role, building the components of said apps, it will be the masses who put those components together into working pieces of software. Or at least, that’s what Salesforce wants to happen.

At TrailheaDX, Salesforce unveiled a super cool package of toys for so-called citizen developers to play with. Not only that, but it also managed to rope in Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to give a keynote, and even better, Lenny Kravitz for a musical performance, as part of its two-day extravaganza.

But the real headline was the summer release of Salesforce’s Lightning development platform, which is bursting with more than 200 new features for expert and budding developers alike.

Thanks to Lightning’s component-based architecture, it’s easy for anyone to combine various app elements and put them together using a simple drag-and-drop interface. But now it’s been updated in a big, big way, with the new Lightning LockerService, Inspector and CLI tools that deliver much broader capabilities for developers to build custom components. There are also new tools for unskilled app builders to create applications without any coding knowledge, simply by mixing and matching the various components available to them. Lightning App Builder for example, lets users create and edit Lightning Record Pages, assign filters to reports using visual tools, and create custom home pages for different users, among other things.

Salesforce is also trying to encourage users to learn more skills with new “superbadges” available in its Trailhead online learning environment. Superbadges will be awarded to users who can solve real-world business challenges like automating a sales process or scaling a businesses’ infrastructure. The bonus for users is they display their Salesforce superbadges as credentials on a resume or their LinkedIn profile, the company said. For now, Superbadges are available on the Lightning Apex, Experience, Reports & Dashboards and Security services, and the company says more will follow.

There may also be some money on the table for the cream of the citizen developers. That’s because Salesforce also announced a new $50 million investment fund that will be used to finance those who build Lightning apps and components. In addition, Salesforce is also setting up its own business incubator within its San Francisco offices, where it plans to help a dozen or so of the best startups trying to build a business on the Lightning platform.

How far can citizen developers go?

Salesforce’s announcement might seem a tad ambitious, but the general level of interest in programming is such that it warrants a gamble, said Al Hilwa, program director of software development research at International Data Corp. (IDC), in an interview.

“There is an explosion of people trying to pick-up the programming out there, which helps this movement. Knowledge workers are using more data science and coding type activities in the mainstream work cycle than before, and many more are increasingly engaged in digital transformation as stakeholders in agile teams or business product managers,” Hilwa said. “In the long run, more and more of the population will eventually engage in a level of app construction skills but for that to materially change, schools have to do a better job teaching app building.”

Nonetheless, Hilwa said that professional developers need not worry about upstart ‘citizens’ stealing their jobs any time soon. He pointed out that most citizen developers will never possess the level of knowledge required to build more complex apps, adding that those who do usually choose to become full-time developers anyway. For Hilwa, the main issue lies in the aptitude of non-developers for constructing and managing apps on a lifecycle basis, where a certain level of expertise is required. In other words, it’s not just about creating the apps – once they’re built, they also need to be maintained and evolved, and it’s not clear if citizen developers will have the time or inclination to do that. So for now, the citizen developer will likely have to stick to building simpler apps, and leave the real work to the professionals.

“I think there is a huge category of apps that are presentational or compositional in nature, and this is where citizen developers will be most engaged,” Hilwa said.

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