SharePoint First Impressions
Yesterday morning was spent getting to know SharePoint. Yesterday afternoon I was at to the dentist for an agonising reminder of why I should floss and rinse more often.
I was going to make some joke about how I've never looked forward to a visit to the dentist so much, as it was a relief to get away from SharePoint. However, I didn't find SharePoint too bad after all. Despite everything I've read of late.
So far all I've been doing is messing about with the web-based front end in SharePoint 2007. Using this you can quickly create a site and add "views" and "documents" (known as Lists and Items in SharePoint"). You can then add your own "fields" (known an Columns) from the web front end. Before long you can build a simple website and add an ACL (of sorts). You can then add "views" and other stuff to the homepage.
It's actually quite impressive. Although, so far, I've been trying to look at it with my "business head" on, rather than as a developer. I've not yet dared to look at the HTML source code it generates. To use SharePoint you've got to learn not to care about that kind of stuff.
If I were a part of a team, in a department, in a business then I'd probably be able to build something useful and fairly quickly.
SharePoint and Visual Studio
Having said all that my next step is to delve deeper and go beyond the basics. Perhaps my initial impressions will be a little less rosey afterward.
This is where I need a sanity check and have a few questions I'm struggling to find the quick answers to:
- Can I use the Express versions or does it have to be the full-blown VS version?
- Do I have develop directly on the server?
- I installed VS 2008 (pro) on my laptop and tried to install VSeWSS but it says I need to install WSS3.0. On my laptop?
I'll report back once I know more and have gotten somewhere with it.
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Jake.
Your first impressions sound pretty similar to the ones I had when I first looked at it but I'll be interested in hearing what you think of it once you have started to customise things a bit. Looking forward to following this.
Richard
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As for using Visual Studio express, that has been covered over at stack overflow:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1257382/can-i-use-visual-studio-express-edition-for-wss-3-0-development
You do not need to install VS on the sharepoint server, but it can make thing alot easier when it comes to debugging. At work we have a Sharepoint virtual machine with VS installed on the same instance.
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You just need to put together.....
"Using this you can quickly create a site and add "views" and "documents" (known as Lists and Items in SharePoint"). You can then add your own "fields" (known an Columns) from the web front end. Before long you can build a simple website and add an ACL (of sorts). You can then add "views" and other stuff to the homepage."
and the....
"It's actually quite impressive. Although, so far, I've been trying to look at it with my "business head" on, rather than as a developer"
....to see why Sharepoint is doing well. Microsoft has made the inital aspect very easy for any user to build 'apps' with, in order to appeal the business people. They are full of beans becuase suddenly they have this tool that lets them build web applications without waiting for IT. Get further into it though and it's as difficult as anything else to develop, then you need the developers. Of course by then the business has it place.
Notes has nothing as easy as this to start off with so does not appeal to business people. If only you could you'd have the best of both worlds - easy for business people to start off with then easy for developers to build on.
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Jake I respect your opinion alot so I'll be interested to follow your journey through sharepoint. I've been working with it for over a year now.
Sharepoint I believe has its place, but it has limitations. You'll see what I mean when you try to do item level security on items in a list/doc Library and you'll scream "Where's my readers field?!". The other thing is get ready to take a step back to 2002 when it comes to Web Design. Everything is in nested HTML tables (SP2007).
As for VS I agree with one of the previous comments. Save yourself the headache and install it on the server and Remote desktop to that machine.
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ah, how I miss the readers field
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Jake - I have been reading your blog for a long time and have found many useful tips so I wanted to try to help you with this one.
Sharepoint 2007, WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007, must be installed on a server O/S. We have gone both routes at my company; installing a server O/S on the desktop and running a virtual machine. Either one works OK.
Luckily, Sharepoint 2010 will allow itself to be installed on Windows 7 for development purposes.
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Hi ChuckM,
I've got SharePoint up and running on the server. It's the Visual Studio part that's confusing me. Do I install/run that on the server too?
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You can run VS on your machine. You need to get a bunch of Sharepoint assemblies over from the server and maybe some other things. My impression so far (I'm not much further on than you Jake) is that you're better off on the server. Goodness knows what happens if (shock horror) two people want to develop at the same time! I might be making a dental appointment soon...
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I use VS standalone on my local computer. - Phil is right, some assemblies need copying accross from time to time.
Earlier versions of VS not so good with sharepoint. 2010 has much better integration, but of course no backwards compatability.
Real pain - need 2 versions of everything if you work in 2007 and 2010.
For RAD, don't ignore Sharepoint Designer. Good RAD tool,esp 2010.
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At work we use virtual machines with a full installation of MOSS and all developer tools needed. You develop pure locally. You check-in/out code to TFS (Team Foundation Server), and when you want to deploy something you build on your local VM onto a server, there's quite a lengthy error-prone set of steps to perform.
However, if you "develop" using Sharepoint Designer, you are best of doing this directly on the server. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you create in Sharepoint Designer is impossible to package and stage (non-repeatable).
As a one-many army developing on your own infrastructure you can of course develop directly on your server.
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Jake, I think you deserve something better than Sharepoint. Why not doing something towards CouchDB?
I think it will have a bright future. And you could make use of your knowledge of a document oriented database plus all of your web development knowledge.
Maybe you could do 6 hours a day Sharepoint for feeding your family and the rest of the day doing some innovative things with CouchDB feeding your (and our) inner geek :-)
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I've been a Notes developer since R3 and a Sharepoint developer since 2007.....
Can I use the Express versions or does it have to be the full-blown VS version?
I think you have to use the full blown one to install the visual studio extensions (vse) for sharepoint which will be a must.
Do I have develop directly on the server?
In SP/WSS 2007 yes you do - most developers use a virtual machine running a server with VS installed as well. But SP2010 will install in "developer" mode onto a Windows 7 machine yipee !
I installed VS 2008 (pro) on my laptop and tried to install VSeWSS but it says I need to install WSS3.0. On my laptop?
See above comment about the "virtual" development environment.
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Thanks Ian.
I see you blog about Domino *and* SharePoint. Added it to my RSS reader already!
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