AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List

Here's my little list of what I like to call the "Best Damn SharePoint Books" list. Bit of a disclaimer: I haven't read all the books out there... came back from TechEd with a few in my car and after checking my mailbox, there were another few... totaling 10! No way have I had a chance to review all of them, so this is not an exhaustive list... but it is strongly slanted in the direction of development books. I'm deliberately staying away from admin / end user books because I haven't had a chance to really dig into those.

Best Damn Windows SharePoint Services v3 Developer Book:
Inside Windows SharePoint Services v3 by Ted Pattison & Dan Larson (MSPRESS)
No, it's not because I teach with Ted, it's because I learned more in this book than any other dev book. More importantly though, I love the way how they explain certain concepts. Chapter 2 covering how the plumbing of SharePoint and ASP.NET 2.0 work together is second to none. Chapter 3 that talks about customizing a site vs development has changed how I explain the concepts to customers (as did the KILLER workflow chapter). Oh, did I mention they did a fantastic job on the chapter on AJAX Web Parts? I've yet to find a single bug in the code or typo... now that's a quality book!

Best Damn Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Developer Book:
Tied: Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005 by Scot Hillier (APRESS) & Inside Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 by Patrick Tisseghem (MSPRESS)
I love both of these... no complaints. Love Scot's chapter 2 on setting up a SharePoint dev environment. So much so, that I scrapped mine and followed his instructions. The only complaint I'd have about either of these books is that MOSS is so big that each piece warrants it's own book, but if you want one book for MOSS, you can't go wrong with having BOTH of these on your bookshelf... I do!

Best Damn SharePoint Workflow Development Book:
Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System by David Mann (APRESS)
The title says it all... it's the best damn workflow book for MOSS... nuff said. David did a fantastic job... yes, in my review on Amazon I said it was a bit chatty (which I regret saying), but don't let that make you second guess it... this is the definitive guide to workflow in SharePoint v3/2007.

Best Damn Advanced SharePoint Development Book:
Professional SharePoint 2007 Development by [everyone & their mother] (WROX)
I love this book... I haven't gone through every chapter one-by-one, but last night I pulled out the copy my good friend (and co-author on this book) John Holliday gave me the other night and thumbed through all the chapters just to see what's in here. WOW... I need to sock away a full day to go through code samples here... I love this book!

Best Damn Real World, Practical Guidance Book On SharePoint:
Real World SharePoint 2007: Indispensable Experiences From 16 MOSS and WSS MVPs by [everyone & their mother] (WROX)
OK, bit of a self promotion here as I contributed a chapter here (and it isn't 100% about development). This book has (wait for it... waaaaaaaaaaait...) 16 (surprise!) SharePoint MVP's who each tossed in a chapter on something that they have a special focus on. You've got Heather Solomon & Shane Perran talking about branding & design, you've got Dustin Miller talking about SharePoint Designer, Nick Swan (of BDC Meta Man) talking about the BDC, I did a chapter Web Content Management, Adam Buenz did security, Shane Young did admin... oh man I'm leaving a lot out. The best part is this isn't company line speak... this is our "look, this is real world guidance... from our experience in the field." I love the concept... the book isn't available until the last week of July / first week of August... but you can pre-order it today!

Technorati tags: sharepoint, moss, wss, wcm

posted on Saturday, June 30, 2007 4:17 PM

Feedback

# re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 7/1/2007 6:09 AM Mohammad

Excellent list. But if I had to recommend just a single book to someone, it would definitely be _Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005_ by Scot Hillier. I got through my first MOSS 2007 project using that book and the ECM blog. Highly recommended.

# re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 7/1/2007 11:53 PM Sahil Malik

Okay I revied Hilier's book - no disagreements there, excellent book. I see myself reading it again and again.

David Mann - I posted a review myself, OUTSTANDING book with a terrific personality.

Hmm .. haven't read the Wrox books, or Ted's book. Guess I got some readin' to do huh? :-)

# re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 7/2/2007 7:27 AM AC [MVP MOSS]

Sahil-
You bet... Ted's is by far the BEST SharePoint book in the market today.

re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 7/2/2007 2:00 PM Peter {faa780ce-0f0a-4c28-81d2-3

This is useful to know, but it's killer--what you're saying with this list is, to be a SharePoint expert, we have to read through 5 books on the subject.

And you didn't even include the Administrator's Companion on the list, so I guess there's really 6 total.

And you're missing a dedicated InfoPath book, so: 7.

Ow.

# re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 7/2/2007 2:31 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

Peter-
Actually reading books does not make you an expert in anything... they are just good things to have as resources. Also, you don't need a book for everything... just saying these are my favorites. If you only want a book on workflow, you only care about one on this list. If you only want to do WSS development, well again, you only need one of them. As for the Admin Companion, that has nothing to do with development so I intentionally didn't add it. Finally, I've yet to see any InfoPath 2007 books... but the WROX Pro SharePoint development book does a good job of covering InfoPath forms development.

So I'm sticking to my 5.

re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 7/2/2007 3:38 PM Peter {faa780ce-0f0a-4c28-81d2-3

Yes, let me clarify:

When I said "become an expert", I meant "aid me on the long road towards expertise." I still consider good books one of two 'legs' of learning--the other leg is of course, actual experience.

What I should have wrote was "to be minimally competent, we need to absorb the information in those 5 books, whether by reading or classroom or (similar to the classroom experience) via Vulcan mind meld."

The point is, we're counting in the thousands of pages, and we're not even including the 1200 page Administrator's Companion. That's a lot.

# re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 7/2/2007 3:46 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

Peter-
I knew what you meant :). Honestly, I think anyone could just pickup the Inside WSS book and be good to go. But, just like anything (ASP.NET for example), if you want more detail (like on ADO or Web Services, etc) than an overview or 1000 page book will contain, then you need to get a book with specifics, like the others I outline.

Fact is, the SharePoint product stack is huge so no one or two books will cover it.

As for the Admin Companion... you assume that would be on my preferred books if I did an admin book list. BIG assumption... that's all I'll say. :)

# re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 7/12/2007 1:43 PM Kanwal

Just wanted to let everyone know that SharePoint Buzz is holding a contest to these books. Comment and have a chance to win

re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 7/25/2007 9:42 AM Mohamed Rashed

"Inside Windows SharePoint Services v3" is the best in my opinion

# re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 11/29/2007 7:48 AM Mostafa Arafa- C# MVP

Thanks alot for valuable list..........and valuable blog.

re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 3/31/2008 7:52 PM T Beam

Thanks a lot for the list.
I got all books on your list.

Do you have any recommendation for books specialize in MOSS Records Center implementation?

Thanks

# re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 3/31/2008 8:02 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

T-
Sorry... I don't know of any.

# re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 3/31/2008 8:17 PM John Holliday [MVP MOSS]

T-
Chapter 12 of "Professional SharePoint 2007 Development" (which I authored) covers the MOSS Records Repository. If you need more info, you can also check out the MS Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Team Blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm.

re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 5/13/2008 9:11 PM R Naaman

This is a great book. I also was able to complete a project with a tight deadline, by referring to this book. Thank you.

# re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 7/23/2008 10:52 AM Eli Robillard

And the best damn WCM book is: Professional SharePoint 2007 Web Content Management Development by Andrew Connell. And it's also among the best damn MOSS development books, don't let the title fool ya.

Cheers,
-Eli.

re: AC's "Best Damn SharePoint Books" List 7/30/2008 6:51 PM Ann Kruze

"Unfortunately comment spammers are just too effecient and.."

"approve comments with vulger language or those soliciting products." Please correct the spelling on "vulgar" and "efficient". Your high school English teacher will feel sooooo much better.
Thanks. I'm was trying to find the best end-user book and stumbled on your site. Nice job and a great service for developers. Congratulations.

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