MSDN Magazine - December 2007 - (Page 128) You Should Learn SharePoint ROBERT BOGUE For a developer, there’s never a shortage of materisible via the Web site, WebDAV, or directly from the Microsoft al to learn. Whether you’re exploring the backwoods of SysOffice clients. Why build document support by hand when you tem.DirectoryServices.Protocols, spending quality time with gecan get it for free with your platform? nerics, or delving into the fine art of garbage collection, there is 5. Nearly every application today has some form of workflow always something clamoring for your attention. So why should included in it. Why code your own providers for the workyou make learning Microsoft® SharePoint® technologies a priorflow service—including ways to interact with users—when ity? Here are five good reasons: you can get SharePoint to do the heavy lifting? SharePoint 1. There are many SharePoint features that can easily be extended can manage the state of workflows through properties of the to your application. How about a set of navigation controls? item or as properties of a task; either way, taking advantage of SharePoint has it. Need to build a security sysSharePoint support for the Windows® Workflow tem? SharePoint has it. You’ll find that many Foundation means less work for you. Using only a small things that aren’t built into ASP.NET are built However, the picture with SharePoint isn’t all number of built-in into SharePoint out of the box. rosy. Here are a few of the hurdles: 2. We talk all the time about reusable software. Cumbersome Tools Whether you’re bothered by components, you can Since the late 1980s, we’ve talked about reusthe lack of F5 run support, the fact that SharePoint create a great number ability from the perspective of back-end comsolutions must be developed on a server OS, or of solutions. ponents. However, in all this time, little has been all of the hand coding of XML files, you’ll agree done to improve reusability of elements in the that SharePoint development isn’t as streamlined user interface aside from basic common controls. SharePoint or “shiny” as developing for ASP.NET. Work on the Visual Studio® provides a framework for user interface components, Web Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services and the VSTO work Parts, that can be recomposed with different configurations in the next version of Visual Studio, code-named “Orcas,” isn’t and in different orders such that one Web Part can serve a quite there yet either. multitude of needs. For instance, in SharePoint you can use Cycle Time Because there’s more going on, your “cycle time” (the the DataView Web Part and XML Web Parts to get data from amount of time between editing and testing code) is much longer. numerous sources and display it. Using only a small number This can be a serious hit on your productivity. of built-in components, you can create a great number of soEverything and the Kitchen Sink It seems like you get everylutions. When you add your own components and connect thing with SharePoint—and you’ll have to learn quite a bit of it to them to existing Web Parts, you create even more powerful create a solution. If you haven’t picked up Master Page skills, you’ll solutions that can connect with existing systems while leverneed to do so. If you don’t quite understand the whole modular aging out-of-the-box functionality. user interface through Web Parts or user controls, you’ll need to 3. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) contains a search learn that, too. If you’re rusty on XML/XPath/XSLT, prepare for a engine that can be used to index and find information in your crash course. SharePoint has a cornucopia of new terms to learn. application. You don’t have to write your own search engine. This includes the capital F feature and the capital S solution, both You’ve got a ready-made platform built right in—all you have of which have special meanings in SharePoint. You have a lot to to do is expose it. Users will get great relevancy and a friendly learn even for a simple SharePoint solution. user interface that even allows them to be alerted when conSharePoint brings a great new way to build applications. It’s not tent changes. quite the leap from Windows Forms to Web Forms, but it’s close. 4. Every app is simple until that one requirement that makes it You’ve got a new level of infrastructure under you and a new set of difficult. The invoicing system is straightforward until the usgreat capabilities—if you can hang on for the ride. ers need to store images of the documents. The CRM system Robert Bogue, Microsoft MVP for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, MCSE, and MCSA:Security, has is easy until the user wants to attach spreadsheets. SharePoint contributed to more than 100 book projects and numerous other publishing projects. Robert blogs offers a complete set of tools for managing documents accesat www.thorprojects.com/blog, and you can e-mail him at Rob.Bogue@thorprojects.com. { } 128 msdnmagazine http://www.thorprojects.com/blog
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