Want to be a part of the next generation of SharePoint development tools?

Straight from the MSFT careers posting:

Would you like to be part of the newly formed team whose charter is to develop a v1 infrastructure and tools for SharePoint platform? Would you like to invent, design, and influence a wide range of RAD developer tools for the fastest growing server product in Microsoft’s history? Would you like to work on a team that is in the early stages of execution, designing a new revolutionary set of tools? If so, the Developer Division Business Applications team is the place for you.

Interested? Go here and learn more:

» Software Developers - Business Applications

posted on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 4:39 PM

Feedback

# re: Want to be a part of the next generation of SharePoint development tools? 2/20/2008 7:58 AM Dan

the sad part here is that this opening should have bee posted about 1.5 years ago.

The state of development tools from MS for SP is dismal.

Better late than never, I suppose.

# re: Want to be a part of the next generation of SharePoint development tools? 2/20/2008 8:33 AM AC [MVP MOSS]

Dan-
Every toolset that comes out of MSFT usually tails the product by a version or two. SQL Server didn't get CLR integration until SQL 2005. Sure, we all wish these tools were out there, but they weren't and at least the product group is moving in the right direction.

I disagree that the state of tools is dismal. Sure, it's lacking, but there are plenty of things you can do to be productive as a SharePoint developer. It isn't all about designers :)

# re: Want to be a part of the next generation of SharePoint development tools? 2/20/2008 9:50 AM Dan

Actually, I NEVER use designers. Mainly, I was thinking more along the lines of decent project templates that stub out features and solutions. (an automated version of what we did in class). Think about what a C# project looks like to get a feature / solution deployed, and what it could look like.

We've actually developed a series of project templates (with wizards) that stub all of his out, activate intellisense on aspx pages and code behind without having to declare the variables in the CS file, etc. We've made our lives much easier. I just get tired thinking about the amount of time that we spent doing that, instead of developing business solutions.

I like what I see in the new workflow solutions, but they still have a long way to go.

I like it when I can concentrate on the business problem, not the technology problem when doing development and deployment.

Maybe it's just me. :)

# re: Want to be a part of the next generation of SharePoint development tools? 2/21/2008 1:13 AM Tom Clarkson

I would agree that this is a couple of years late and that the sharepoint developer tools from MS so far are pretty pathetic. I also developed a set of templates (now on codeplex - http://www.codeplex.com/wspbuilder/). Getting the templates to the point of working better than VSeWSS only took about a week. Adding support for VS2008 only took about an hour, and yet MS doesn't plan to have that for another four months.

SQL CLR integration is something quite different - a significant new piece of the platform. The sharepoint developer tools are more like VSTO, which was available while office itself was still in beta.

# re: Want to be a part of the next generation of SharePoint development tools? 2/22/2008 9:44 AM Mark Mascolino

Agreed with the gentleman above...most if all of this should have been done ages ago. Look at what you and Ted did with stsdev? Presumablely the people who built the out of the box features and web parts as well as those testing the solutions framework built tools, processes and workflows to help them through that drudgery but none of it was released or hinted at...forcing lots of people to re-invent the wheel.

# re: Want to be a part of the next generation of SharePoint development tools? 2/22/2008 10:14 AM AC [MVP MOSS]

Mark (et al)-
Look, I agree these things should have been done a long time ago, but fact is they weren't. Nothing we can do about that so let's just focus on what we can do to mitigate the issues today, like STSDEV and my CR/R tools as well as _many_ others, until we get some really good tools from the product team.

-AC

# re: Want to be a part of the next generation of SharePoint development tools? 5/19/2008 1:37 AM OpenYourEars

Andrew your not going to like what I have to say but you do need to hear it, I give you credit for the large volume of articles you produce for the SharePoint community but you act like a politician every time a commenter has the audacity to say anything negative about SharePoint by stubbornly insisting that their views hold no merit. SharePoint has holes in it, period, and people quite rightly will respond to these shortcomings, get over it. As for your constant attempts to justify the lack of development tools, well there is no excuse for these not being in place at the same time the platform is released. Microsoft cannot expect to have their cake and eat it to by trying to have us use their software for everthing and then pursuing their current trend of forcing us to look to third parties for development tools and even controls (ie. Silverlight). You have a position of influence in the community and should be helping us in telling Microsoft to shape up and deliver 100% complete feature sets before asking for our money and not keep making excuses for them.

# re: Want to be a part of the next generation of SharePoint development tools? 5/19/2008 7:28 AM AC [MVP MOSS]

That's funny you decide to critique it yet not leave your name/email. Anyway, I don't think I'm a politician. I've been VERY vocal to Microsoft about the holes in the product and the developer story. The reason I don't hammer away at it now is for the very reasons I've stated in the past. They get it, they have made organizational and resource changes to address it, and they are currently working on it. These things take time. Do I give them a pass? No... but there's absolutely nothing positive about being part of the problem and not part of the solution. So, I do what I can to make the developer life more paletable.

Post Feedback

Title:
Name:
Email:	(email will not be displayed)
Url:
Comments:
Please add 1 and 5 and type the answer here: Remember Me?

All Comments Are Filtered & Moderated
Unfortunately comment spammers are just too effecient and are constantly dirtying up blogs with irrelevant and unwanted comments trying to improve their standing on search engines. All comments on this blog are moderated. I do not censor comments, but I don't approve comments with vulger language or those soliciting products. Most of the time comments are approved within a few hours of being submitted with the only exception when I'm traveling.

Why are you asking for my email address?
The only reason I'm asking for your email address, which isn't required to submit a comment, is to provide a gravatar if you've created an account for yourself and associated your email address with a small image. If you have a gravatar created for the email address you submit, it will appear next to your comment. Otherwise nothing will appear.

What is a gravatar?
A gravatar is a "globally recognized avatar." You can get more information about gravatars, as well as create your own for free, at www.gravatar.com. You can also view my gravatar here.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License
Site design by Heather Solomon.