SharePoint - If You're a Glutton for Punishment
I've been doing a lot of web work lately, and in the last few months I've had the opportunity to work with SharePoint (MOSS).
In my own experience, it seemd to work well. I was able to get most of what I was trying to accomplish done. The sites that we created looked really nice and were very functional. I believe that the clients were overall impressed and happy with what was provided to them.
Now, I've been a pretty hard core developer right from the begining. While in school one of our big projects in one of my semesters was to create a communication program, you chose the language and what specifically the program was to do. I decided to create a terminal program to talk to the Main Frame computers and I wrote it in Assembly language. While other guys were using Quick Basic and VB!
I bring this up because it was nothing to me while I worked with SharePoint that I had to do some stuff using XSL and I didn't think to much about it when I had to write other programs to transform some of the data so that it would work in SharePoint. It didn't bother me that much that I hadto d a lot of stuff using trial and error. Copying my work to a server to test it out and then working on it again to fix any problems I ran into. I was fine creating small test apps to encase certain components that I could later move to the SharePoint server once they were ready.
Apparently though, there are a lot of poeple out there who hate the fact that there are no good development tools for SharePoint. I have heard a lot of complaining about how bad SharePoint is, and it all has to do with how difficult it is to program in it. Maybe this is a good thing. I mean, i no one wants to do it, then it leaves a lot of work out there for me. :)
Truth is, I'd certainly like things to be easier. But if it isn't, I'll still work on it. If I have to get my hands dirty to do a job, then so be it. It is more rewarding in the end when you complete a project knowing that others wouldn't even attempt it. Maybe this makes me a Glutton for Punishment.
I know that asof yet, I haven't been scared off and I listen to these guys who complain. I sat the other night when someone told me point by point all the things that he didn't like about SharePoint. Maybe the problem isn't that it was too difficult, maybe the problem is that he wasn't being paid enough.
A friend of mine just lost her job, along with her entire development team. The problem is that the SharePoint project they were working was not working the way the client envisioned it. This is an unfortunate problem that has probably less to do with the work that these people were doing and more to do with the original design and architecture of the solution. If you want the project to work, especially a SharePoint project, then it must be architected properly.
That's all I have for now. I'll try to think of more to write here on a more regular basis.
In my own experience, it seemd to work well. I was able to get most of what I was trying to accomplish done. The sites that we created looked really nice and were very functional. I believe that the clients were overall impressed and happy with what was provided to them.
Now, I've been a pretty hard core developer right from the begining. While in school one of our big projects in one of my semesters was to create a communication program, you chose the language and what specifically the program was to do. I decided to create a terminal program to talk to the Main Frame computers and I wrote it in Assembly language. While other guys were using Quick Basic and VB!
I bring this up because it was nothing to me while I worked with SharePoint that I had to do some stuff using XSL and I didn't think to much about it when I had to write other programs to transform some of the data so that it would work in SharePoint. It didn't bother me that much that I hadto d a lot of stuff using trial and error. Copying my work to a server to test it out and then working on it again to fix any problems I ran into. I was fine creating small test apps to encase certain components that I could later move to the SharePoint server once they were ready.
Apparently though, there are a lot of poeple out there who hate the fact that there are no good development tools for SharePoint. I have heard a lot of complaining about how bad SharePoint is, and it all has to do with how difficult it is to program in it. Maybe this is a good thing. I mean, i no one wants to do it, then it leaves a lot of work out there for me. :)
Truth is, I'd certainly like things to be easier. But if it isn't, I'll still work on it. If I have to get my hands dirty to do a job, then so be it. It is more rewarding in the end when you complete a project knowing that others wouldn't even attempt it. Maybe this makes me a Glutton for Punishment.
I know that asof yet, I haven't been scared off and I listen to these guys who complain. I sat the other night when someone told me point by point all the things that he didn't like about SharePoint. Maybe the problem isn't that it was too difficult, maybe the problem is that he wasn't being paid enough.
A friend of mine just lost her job, along with her entire development team. The problem is that the SharePoint project they were working was not working the way the client envisioned it. This is an unfortunate problem that has probably less to do with the work that these people were doing and more to do with the original design and architecture of the solution. If you want the project to work, especially a SharePoint project, then it must be architected properly.
That's all I have for now. I'll try to think of more to write here on a more regular basis.
posted by Luis at 1:28 PM
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