1. A method, comprising: receiving at a platform supporting applications built by third parties, at least one programming language instruction associated with at least one custom object; determining a shape for the at least one custom object based upon a runtime instance of the at least one custom object; and generating, based on the at least one programming language instruction, a set of instructions to an on-demand database service, the set of instructions configured to operate upon the runtime instance of the at least one custom object based upon the shape.